


your heart is your masterpiece (and i'll keep it safe)

by nightwashed



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Magic, Angst, Artist Lance (Voltron), Childhood Best Friends to Lovers, Childhood Friends, Curse Breaking, Declarations Of Love, Eventual Romance, Fairy Tale Elements, Fantasy, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Half-Dragon Keith (Voltron), Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Magic, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron), Prince Keith (Voltron), Prince Lance (Voltron), Romance, So. Much. Pining., i am who i am, this is just a pining fest, this is not a soulmate au.....but they're soulmates, you know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:21:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25452316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightwashed/pseuds/nightwashed
Summary: Prince Lance of the Lenula Kingdom is cursed with the sudden ability to soar through the sky without his control. It’s like gravity itself has suddenly given up on him, and him alone. The only way to keep his feet on the ground is to – for some reason – touch his best friend, Prince Keith of the Marmora Kingdom. Who he happens to be very much in love with.And the cure might have to force Lance to let him go.Or, Prince Lance has to make a choice between saving himself, or losing his childhood best friend.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 94
Kudos: 735
Collections: I'd cry over you, Just some pretty nice fics





	your heart is your masterpiece (and i'll keep it safe)

**Author's Note:**

> i know. strange concept, right? well. i blame my 4 am insomniac brain.
> 
> i would like to start this off by saying this isn't as angsty as it sounds! i wrote this originally as a pick me up for myself so it's also got a tonnnnnn of fluff!
> 
> i rlly didn't intend for this to get so long, but things definitely spiraled lol. and i've been looking at it for way too long so i'm just. going to give it to you. i hope you enjoy. and happy early lance day <3
> 
> the title is from [i'll keep you safe by sleeping at last](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQOojJm2KDw) (':

The air in the forest always feels different. Fresher, lighter, livelier, compared to the town. The man steps between stray twigs and leaves and branches, keeping his footsteps just as light. He twists his hand around the side of his green robe, keeping it from skimming across the ground. Making sure to stay quiet. 

It’s foggy today, a mist worming its way between the trees. He can’t hear any birds chirping or tottering around their nests, not for miles away. It’s eerie, though he knows he shouldn’t be paying attention to details like this. Not now. He needs to focus on keeping up.

He follows the familiar red dress through the fog, but stays a safe distance away. 

Out of all the days he’d been following her, today the air of the forest feels intensified. It’s almost electric, the way he senses it in his very core. It makes him want to take flight and fly in the opposite direction, far, far away. And the closer they get, the more charged it feels. 

Or maybe that’s just him, his nerves. He can feel sweat dripping down the back of his neck, a tremble in his knees. 

He doesn’t want to know, doesn’t want to have to do this. He fears it each time.

The woman stops where she usually does, in front of an open stretch of land. She holds a runestone out in front of her, and he quickly hides beneath a bush to wait. 

The quaint cottage appears in a flash, the same one from before. The woman walks inside and he hastily approaches the front window. As soon as he peers into it, his stomach drops. There’s a large cauldron sitting in the middle of the cottage, which is bereft of its usual furniture. It’s all gone, only the cauldron remains. 

The witch is drawing something over the ground, the other woman standing off to the side, watching. He knows what’s going to happen next and he _won’t_ let it. 

It’s time to be brave.

He doesn’t let himself think before he’s bursting inside and drawing his sword at them both. “Stop this, right now,” he demands, leveling the sword at the woman in the red dress. When she looks at him, she snarls. 

“What are you doing here?” 

He ignores her and looks to the witch instead, who looks frazzled and sickly pale. He narrows his eyes at her. “Whatever she’s making you do, you don’t have to do it,” he says, trying to make himself sound reassuring despite his frantic heartbeat. 

“Ignore him, he’s not a real threat,” the woman says, and it has anger and hurt stirring deep inside him. “Do it. _Now._ ”

The witch reaches for something on the stand, but he moves quicker and knocks it out of her hand. It turns into a tussle before he knows it, moving this way and that as the witch tries to shake him off her. 

“You don’t understand, I have to do this,” the witch pleads, but he doesn’t relent. 

She pushes him sharply aside, and he crashes into the stand of jars and herbs and other ingredients, knocking them into the cauldron. 

That’s when he feels something hard and dense hit the back of his head. And then he’s down on the ground, a blinding ache pounding against his skull. 

“You useless boy! Look what you’ve done!” the woman is screaming menacingly, and he might have slurred something back, something of betrayal and treachery, but he’s not paying attention to her. 

The cauldron lights up with an array of colors sparking out of it, smoke building up and billowing out onto the floor. It shakes and stirs and all he can do is stare at it as his vision slowly begins to fade away. 

The last thing he sees is a faery flying out of the cauldron and zipping out into the open air. 

Later on that day, the faery finally stops when reaching the inner walls of a castle. Her destination – the back of the human’s neck. The faery gives it a sharp zap, taking with it the glow that surrounds her. It fizzles away as she descends to the ground like a leaf caught in the wind.

  
  


* * 

Getting out of bed today feels a little more exhilarating than usual. The first thing Lance does is cross off that last box on his calendar. Today’s date, also known as the day Keith makes his return from his 6 month long expedition. Well, he made it back to his own kingdom last week, but today he finally gets to see him. 

He moves about the castle with a barely hidden jump in his step, and goes through the morning feeling like he’s on top of things. He passes by the grand dining room after he finishes his training to see everyone hard at work, preparing the table for the Marmorans’ arrival.

It’s almost surreal, preparing for this day after so long.

He sorts through his wardrobe after his shower, and tries not to think too much of his attire. He can’t fight the nagging voice in his head, though. He’d like to look good, that’s all. It isn’t everyday that his best friend ventures on nearly a year long trip to visit the dragons, with only letters keeping them in contact. He wants his outfit to suit the occasion. 

Once he finally manages to make a decision and grows a little too stir-crazy in his idleness, he heads towards his desk and reaches for one of the letters. He reads through them again, and tries to quell the nervousness he feels swirling in his stomach because in only a couple hours, he’ll have the real deal standing right in front of him. 

And then, that’s when the day takes... a slight detour. 

Just as he’s about to try on his chosen garments, he’s suddenly being pulled right off his feet. Like a rug being yanked out from under him, only he’s being tugged _upwards_ . He doesn’t know what to make of any of it, gasping as he goes higher, and higher, and _higher,_ until his head hits the ceiling with a _bonk_ that rattles him out of his shocked stupor. 

Lance glances down, where his bed and couch and closet and the _floor_ look back at him as though in mockery. He lets out a helpless sound, looking everywhere like he’ll find the answer or the culprit of this strange, strange situation he’s somehow wound himself up in.

He’s flying? Floating? 

Whatever it is that’s happening to him – he’s stuck and has no idea how to make it stop. 

“Pidge, Hunk,” he murmurs, short of breath, like the reality of the situation is sinking in. “Pidge! Hunk!” he all but roars, hands shaking as they move up to push off the ceiling. He gets himself away from it, but is pulled right back up as though gravity itself has suddenly given up on him and him alone. 

“Your Highness?” a guard calls from outside. “Are you alright?” 

“Find Pidge and Hunk,” he orders, doesn’t have the sense to say anything else. “Find them and bring them here _alone._ ”

“Yes, Your Highness…” 

Lance tries to crawl over the ceiling to get to the wall, thinks maybe he can crawl his way back down onto the ground, but when he manages to get a hand on the wall his body jerks him all the way back up. 

Impossible. He’s stuck. 

_How?_

Pidge comes in first. 

“Why’d that guard look so constipated?” she’s saying, looking around the room with Hunk on her tail. It takes her a second, but she stops dead in her tracks when she spots him.

“I hope it has nothing to do with Lance,” Hunk murmurs, then quickly holds onto her shoulders when he almost bumps into her. “Hey, what’s–” And then he’s looking right at him, and Lance lets out a distressed sound.

_“Lance?”_

“What – in the world,” Pidge squawks, taking her glasses clean off her face. “What – how the hell did you get up there?”

“Dude, are you _flying?_ ”

Lance whines somewhere deep in his throat and kicks at the air, scuffing the ceiling with his shoe. “I have no idea what’s going on, this just – happened! Out of nowhere! Get me down!” 

They blink at him, then at each other, before scrambling to get on the bed. Lance takes both their hands and they start pulling. Soft at first, and then putting all their strength into it when Lance doesn’t move an inch, heels digging into the mattress and all. He thinks he feels himself give, but just like before, he’s slammed right back into that same spot. Not budging. 

“Pull harder!” Lance urges, and when Pidge’s face gets so red that she has to fall back over the bed to catch her breath, Hunk takes both of Lance’s hands and tugs him as hard as he can. 

“Ow, ow, ow, ow!” Lance yanks his hands back and grabs at his shoulders with a grimace.

“Sorry!” Hunk pants, looking at him with the most confused look in his eyes. “It’s like you’re… cemented up there or something.” 

“Did you have a fight with a witch?” Pidge asks, completely at a loss.

Lance puffs out his cheeks in frustration. “No! Of course not!” 

And then, a knock on the door has them all freezing, though Lance doesn’t really have much of an option. He quickly gives Pidge a _look_ , lifting his brows in the direction of the door and whispering through his teeth, “See what they want but don’t let anyone in!” 

Pidge immediately looks to Hunk, and when he shakes his head at her like he knows what she’s trying to do, she promptly turns around and grumbles while stomping towards the door. Lance feels like he’s about to burst out of his skin. 

“It’ll be okay,” Hunk tries to reassure. 

“I feel like a spider. Or a fly caught in a spider’s web.” 

Hunk only gives him a pitying smile.

When Pidge comes back, there’s a withering look drawn over her face that makes her look a hundred times more tired than when she left the room.

“The Queen wants you to greet the Marmorans with her — they’re supposed to be arriving really soon,” she mutters, chewing on her lip nervously.

Lance screws his eyes shut, cursing and kicking the ceiling yet again in his scramble. “Why did this have to happen _now_ – what even _is_ ”– he stops, sucks in a breath, and blows it out extremely slowly through his nose – “What am I going to do? I can’t go down there like this — I can’t move at all!” 

“I told the guard you weren’t feeling well enough to show. Not sure if the Queen is gonna buy that, though.” 

Lance hangs his head and winces against the strain in his neck. 

“If my parents see me like this who knows what they’ll do,” he bemoans. “And if word gets out that I’ve been cursed or someone put a spell on me or used any kind of magic on me _,_ war might break out.” 

“So you… think you’re cursed?” Hunk iniquires, sounding oddly eager all of a sudden. Lance huffs at him.

“What else could it be? And why do you sound like you’re going somewhere with that?”

Hunk turns to Pidge with what looks to be his signature _I-have-an-idea_ face that he usually wears when he comes up with a genius new invention, and it takes her a while of scrutiny that Lance doesn’t really know what to do with until she’s snapping her fingers and nodding at him like she’s just read his mind. He still doesn’t know how they do that. 

“Oh yeah! I can’t believe I didn’t think of that sooner!”

“Right! I just hope she’ll actually appear because last time—”

“Hello!” Lance calls out, frowning deeply at his friends. “Hi, yeah, it’s me Lance? The guy currently stuck in the air? What are you two plotting?”

Hunk looks at him and smiles sheepishly. “Okay, so… Matt might have run into a nymph in the forest a couple days ago.” 

Lance stares. Blinks. Turns to Pidge and then back at Hunk and raises his brows as high as they can go. “Um, how did I not hear of this?” he retorts, astounded. “He actually _saw_ her? Like, up close and everything?”

“Or so he says,” Hunk murmurs, and Pidge digs her elbow into his side.

“People always talked about elemental nymphs but never got close enough to actually _see_ them!” he’s momentarily too struck with his own amazement to remember why they’re even talking about this. “Wait, what does this have to do with anything?” 

“What if…” Hunk trails off, worming his way around the words. “...we try to find her and get her to help us?”

Pidge nods enthusiastically next to him. “Nymphs are ancient, if anyone knows anything about magic or has been around long enough to know about it, it’s them.”

“What are the chances she’ll even show up, though?” Lance asks dubiously, worrying his lips between his teeth, his brief excitement from before now filtering out. This sounds like too much of a risk for a situation like this. “No one’s ever even _seen_ a nymph before, let alone spoken to one. It’s one of those forbidden things you just don’t try to do because it’s just. Not possible.” 

“We just said Matt–”

“Aside from Matt, then! Wasn’t that just a chance thing, anyways? Who’s to say it’ll happen again?”

Pidge crosses her arms over her chest, but she’s smiling impishly up at him, and it only poses to worry him more. “Let’s just say this nymph in particular is in regular contact with Matt.”

 _“What?”_ Lance sputters, eyes bulging out of their sockets. “How – you’re lying. She’s lying, right?” He turns to Hunk, who raises his arms as though to show that he has no part in this.

“Matt is tight-lipped about it, but it’s true. It probably has to do with the research he’s doing on the plants in the forest,” he says, and really, should Lance even be surprised? He’s hovering above his own bed, in the _air,_ for crying out loud. Anything is possible. “And aren’t nymphs omniscient? They’re like… goddesses. So they’re impartial to the human and magic realms. If we’re going to find out how to fix this and keep it quiet, they’re your best bet all around.”

Lance sits on that, and decides he doesn’t like it. “Yeah, because an omniscient being having play-dates with a human is so believable.” 

“It sounds a lot like you _want_ to stay up there,” Pidge says, digging her knee into the bed to lean against it. Lance throws her a look. “Listen, if anything this just increases our chances. The forest nymph didn’t show up when Hunk and I tried to find her, so I think I should go alone, since she might trust me more if I’m related to Matt. Then, I’ll ask her if she knows anything about this. Whether it’s a curse or not, how we can cure it, all that.”

“And you think that’ll actually work?”

“It’ll have to. We have nothing else to go off of here.”

“I should probably keep the King and Queen distracted, shouldn’t I?” Hunk pipes up, already shrinking at the thought. He takes in a deep breath and lets it out, then begins pacing back and forth with his hands over his hips, though he must’ve forgotten about his breathing because it sounds rash coming out of him now.

Lance sighs. “I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

“It’s all we’ve got,” Pidge pushes herself back from the bed and places a hand on Hunk’s shoulder. “Just hang in there till we can find a way to get you back down.”

“Yeah, like I have a choice.”

He ruefully stares down at the ground after they leave. It’s not too far down but it’s far enough to make his stomach turn. 

The room grows piercingly silent. And he remains unmoving. Restlessly still. Unsettlingly motionless.

This is going to be torture.

  
  


* *

  
  


An hour passes, which turns to an hour and a half, and all Lance has done is try to get a terrible crick out of his neck. The dinner he’s supposed to be attending to welcome the Marmorans is probably well on its way to being over, and Lance tries not to think about it. 

Keith is supposed to be back today. Lance was supposed to welcome him back and they were supposed to catch up and Lance was supposed to _see_ him, at least. He’d been waiting for that feeling of comfort to hit upon looking at Keith again, so his heart could rest easy knowing that he was safe and back home. 

It’s been months since Keith left on his expedition. And it suffices to say that he’s missed him, terribly, if that hasn’t been clear. He still misses him, and the fact that he’s somewhere in this very castle right now and Lance _still_ can’t see him? It’s slowly eating him up inside. 

It may be dramatic and sappy and everything in between, but Lance just wants to see him. 

He grumbles a complaint; he can’t even slump in despair right now. His legs and back won’t _let_ him. At least he can reach around to message his neck, although that feels fruitless judging by the raging headache he’s got building up. 

He’s trying to wriggle around to find some kind of reprieve in a position like this, when there’s a knock on the door, followed by a voice that sends his heart into a pounding, aching, jolting mess.

“Lance? Are you in there?” Oh god, it’s Keith. He draws in a breath, though he shouldn’t be surprised that he came to see him. He smiles a little, thinking about Keith sitting in that dining room with everyone else and waiting to see Lance. “I’m coming in, alright?” 

Lance was about to tell him to come in anyways, but he just can’t find it within him to let out a single word. It’s stuck somewhere, in the place where he’s trying to claw at his hair in aggravation at this whole situation, and where he’s trying to catch his breath. He needs to get a _grip._ Although when Keith enters, dressed in a well-fitted dress-shirt tucked into dark slacks and stands nothing short of _stunning_ in the middle of his room, he thinks he might not be too unreasonable in his flusteredness afterall. 

“Lance?” Keith walks further into the room, hands tucked gingerly into his pockets. Lance frowns. This was so _not_ how he expected their reunion to look like. At all. 

“I’m, uh, up here,” he says meekly, giving him a small wave when his eyes dart up and land on him. In his bathing robe. His lips part in what must probably be astonishment, startlement, confusion; all of the above. Probably. 

“ _Lance?_ ” Keith blinks a couple times, appearing simply gobsmacked as his mouth opens and closes several times around the words he’s trying to form. “What — how — how are you doing that?” 

“I can explain,” says Lance, though it’s an automatic thing to say, to want to justify this strangeness, but… there isn’t a way to explain any of this if he, himself, doesn’t even know what’s going on. “Nevermind, I actually can’t.” 

Keith lets out an incredulous huff, pushing his hair out of his eyes and looking at him like he’s expecting him to say more. Lance only looks at him helplessly. 

“I literally only left for a couple months. And you — you what? Can fly now?” 

Lance snorts before it unveils itself into a fit of laughter. He reveals in it; he hasn’t laughed the whole day because of this mess and it’s a lightness that relieves him immensely. When Keith raises a playful brow, his smile crooked and unbelievably handsome, Lance’s belly begins to flutter with it. 

“Not exactly,” he sniffs out the last of his laugh, “I, uh, really have no idea how this happened.”

“The Queen said you were sick,” says Keith, hands poised over his hips. “Hunk was being finicky so I assumed something else was going on, but nothing like _this_.” He frowns, tilting his head to the side. “Is it magic?”

“Hunk and Pidge think I’m cursed,” Lance mumbles half-heartedly. “So there’s that.”

“What the hell?” His frown deepens. “What kind of curse makes you fly?”

“I can’t fly, I can’t even move.”

Telling by the troubled furrow of Keith’s brow, this information doesn’t placate him at all. He starts towards Lance’s bed, kicks off his shoes haphazardly and gets up on the bed. 

“What are you doing?” he asks, watching him warily. 

Keith raises his hands, reaching for him. “I’m gonna pull you down.” 

“I already tried that with Hunk and Pidge and it didn’t work.” 

“Then what’s one more time? You can’t just — _stay_ up there, Lance.” 

“You think I want to?” he crows, swinging his arms relentlessly, a whine on the edge of his voice. “My back is quite literally _killing_ me and I feel like my neck is about to fall off my shoulders. My legs, my thighs, my toes, they’re all numb. I’m dying, Keith.”

“You’re not dying.”

“Yes I am!”

“No you’re not, just grab my hands already.” 

With a grunt on his tongue, he reaches out just to prove his point and grabs onto Keith’s hands. He’s about to shout out a frustrated, “See? I told you it wouldn’t work!” and only has a split second to feel Keith’s hand over his own when he’s suddenly falling back down.

He gasps – it’s like someone turned gravity back on, that magnetic force from before lets his body fall free as he crashes down right into Keith and topples over his bedsheets. 

He groans at the impact, his stiff body not helping to subdue the pain he’s acquired in his joints. Lance touches over the linen cloth beneath him and startles when he feels the distinct firm muscle beneath the clothing. Keith’s chest rises and falls, and Lance thinks he can hear the rhythm of his heartbeat like this, pressed so close to his heart. His face heats up, eyes widening when he raises his head to look back at Keith. 

“Hi,” he croaks, swallowing roughly. 

“Hey,” Keith returns, it’s light and quiet but there’s a question hidden there within the seams of his layered voice. 

Lance doesn’t let him ask it yet. 

“Okay so that was really weird and I’m questioning a lot of things right now but, you’re here!” Lance beams, grabbing onto Keith’s shoulders and smiling brightly down at him. Keith lets out a soft breath, a small noise of disbelief, but he smiles back at Lance and he suddenly looks so much softer, right here smothered in his sheets. The troubled creases of his worry have smoothened out and he looks so dashing that it nearly makes Lance mad at him. His eyes trace over Lance’s face and it inspires another blush out of him, and when Keith reaches out to brush his fringe back into place he almost _melts_. 

“Yeah,” he says, hands still lingering. “What did you get yourself into?”

“Beats me,” he says, then plops back down over Keith’s shoulder to rest his head there, letting out a sigh of many, many emotions. “But I am going to lay here because I can’t feel my legs or the rest of my body and I’m tired, for that matter.” 

“Are you seriously brushing this off?”

“I’m dealing with it.”

“How?”

“By letting myself _lie down_ for the first time in like a day!”

“How long have you been up there?” Keith asks, rising up on his elbows to look down at him. 

“Two hours, I think,” he responds, tapping thoughtfully over Keith’s collarbone. And then promptly curls them when he catches himself in the act. “I thought it would be forever. Pidge is out looking for… answers. Hunk is distracting my parents because they can’t find out for war reasons.”

“I figured,” Keith murmurs. “So you were just… stuck up there?”

“Yes, it was the _weirdest_ thing. Pidge thought she could ask a nymph for help as a last resort.”

“What?” Keith asks, incredulous. Lance would crane his head to look at him but that feels too daring of an act to even consider given their position (which really makes him wonder _why_ he thought laying on Keith would be a good idea) so he stays where he is. 

“I know, I was surprised too. Apparently this nymph is in regular contact with Matt.” 

_“What?”_

“I know!” 

“Why do you think you could suddenly come down, then? If you went through all that?” Keith asks, sounding contemplative. “I didn’t even have time to pull you down.”

“Maybe the curse wore off or something.” 

“Do you really think you're cursed?”

“I don’t know. I obviously don’t want to be,” he sighs, then gnaws on his lip. “I’m sorry this is happening right now.” 

“Why are _you_ apologizing?” 

“I mean you just got here. What a way to welcome you back, huh?” 

“That doesn’t matter,” Keith grumbles, sounding put off. A stretch of silence follows and Lance wonders if he should fill it in with something. He thinks, in a haze, that he’d fall asleep like this if he could. Keith feels so solid and warm and grounding beneath him that he doesn’t think he’ll have a hard time getting there at all. “You’re here now,” continues Keith, still sounding gruff with it. Lance smiles to himself. 

“So, how was the trip?” he asks, because really, that’s what he’s been wanting to hear all about. “Did you get me anything? Souvenirs? You have to tell me _everything._ ” 

“I wrote to you about it,” Keith says, and Lance clicks his tongue at him.

“And now I want to hear about it.” 

Lance shifts to look at him, giving him his undivided attention. Keith huffs a laugh, but doesn’t protest.

“It wasn’t what I expected. We saw a lot of different dragons and I met other half dragons like me. I... didn’t think there’d be so many, or that the culture was so vast, either,” Keith admits, and Lance smiles brilliantly at him. When Keith told him that he was going to the highlands in search of other dragons, it had been one of the few times Keith ever acknowledged his half-dragon heritage. And Lance had been so thrilled that he was trying to learn more about that part of himself, for the very first time since he knew Keith. So seeing him talk with such new found wonder in his eyes gratifies and comforts him like no tomorrow. 

“And, well, I…” Keith starts to say, making Lance wonder what’s got him so hesitant all of a sudden. Keith moves as though to reach behind himself, and that’s when the door springs open and has Lance nearly jolting out of his skin. 

He quickly leaps off Keith and tries to whip around to see who just interrupted them, but his body is suddenly being lifted off the bed again. He can feel the strange force trying to glue him back onto the ceiling and lets out a rattled squawk, grabbing onto the sheets in an attempt to ground himself but they just lift right along with him. He feels himself physically being pulled _up_ – until Keith’s hand grabs for his wrist. And Lance is falling right back down onto the bed. 

He blinks against the racing of his heart and stares back at Keith, who looks just as spooked as him.

“What the hell?” he mutters, and when he looks over his shoulder, Hunk is there looking shaken enough for the both of them. 

“What just happened?” 

“I don’t know!” Lance cries out, then looks back at Keith, then down at where he holds his wrist, and back up again. He licks his lips. “Can you... let go for a second?” 

Keith appears pensive, but eventually lets his hold slacken. As soon as he lets go, Lance begins ascending again. Hunk reaches out for him, but that doesn’t stop him from rising and rising and rising until Keith is grabbing for him and right when they touch, his body comes plummeting back down. 

Hunk gapes at them, then shakes his head as though trying to comprehend.

There’s a complicated look drawn over his own face, partially because of the utter embarrassment he feels swirling in his cheeks and the implications forming in his head. He tries not to look at Keith when he speaks. 

“I think… when Keith and I touch, I don’t levitate or float or whatever the heck you wanna call it.” 

“What does that even mean?” asks Keith, and Lance watches Hunk’s former aghast expression turn to something more jubilant, more hopeful. 

“I have no clue, but this is a good thing, right?” Hunk beams. “You have a way to keep your feet on the ground now!”

“By holding onto Keith twenty-four-seven?” Lance squawks, then gasps and looks at Keith with wide eyes. “Wait – what if _you’re_ cursed, too?” 

Keith doesn’t look convinced. “I don’t think so. And could you stop saying you’re cursed?”

“Well, we don’t know that I’m not.”

“We don’t know that you are, either.”

When he turns to gather Hunk’s input, he falters when he sees how amused he looks as he watches them.

“I think we have to wait it out until Pidge gets back and hopefully knows what’s going on. Until then you two need to stay together,” Hunk decides firmly. 

Lance glances at Keith out of the corner of his eye and pulls at the sleeve of his robe, thumbing at the hem. He thinks of politics and duties to the public and his stomach turns inside out, queasy and horribly uncomfortable.

Keith, for his part, takes this information in stride. He nods right away, no uncertainty about it, and even squeezes Lance’s hand in his hold. He looks at Keith and finds a gentleness in the way he regards him, as though in reassurance, as though telling him _you can trust me_. Lance already knows he can trust Keith, there’s no questioning that. He just isn’t sure if he can handle all this happening at once. 

Keith’s return, the apparent curse, and now _this?_ How is he going to survive?

“Alright,” he puffs out his cheeks and pulls his lips to the side. “What do we tell my mom and Kings Adam and Shiro? Because I’m not sleeping on the ceiling tonight.” 

Keith blinks at that, then quickly cleares his throat. “I’ll handle Adam and Shiro. We used to have sleepovers all the time. I don’t think they’d find it suspicious.” 

“Yeah, when we were like ten. We haven’t done something like that in forever.” 

Keith seems to frown at him, something like conflict brewing in his eyes. It disappeares when he looks away, giving Lance a small shrug. “It’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it.” 

Lance doubts that any of this is going to turn out ‘fine’ by any means, but he doesn’t say as much. But if his best friend is going to be by his side for the first time in months… then who is he to put up a fight against that? 

  
  


* *

  
  


The first day of their arrangement is tougher than Lance thought it would be. He can’t go a literal second without holding onto Keith’s elbow or his shoulder or any part of him or else he’d risk floating up to the high ceilings of the castle. They’d almost lost contact in the dining room for breakfast, and Lance had stared with pure mortification at the distance between the ceiling and the floor, which had to be _at least_ 40 feet long. 

He’d pressed himself a little closer to Keith after that. 

And it’s harder to manage, constantly sticking to each other without having a really good reason for it. Usually it’s not strange to see them around each other since everyone knows them to be really good friends, but being so all over each other isn’t exactly their usual.

His parents don’t seem to question anything, nonetheless _him._ So he takes it for what it is and doesn’t think about the wandering eyes that trail after him and Keith as they go about the castle. It’s okay for a while. This happening on the exact day of Keith’s return had worked somewhat in their favor; Keith staying over isn’t overly suspicious given how long they’ve been apart, not that it would’ve been suspicious otherwise. 

Lance can’t really remember the last time they actually spent time together. Before Keith’s expedition they’d only have time to meet during festivals or days of worship, with occasional surprise visits that hadn’t been disclosed in the many letters they sent to one another. So being essentially pushed together by this albeit strange workings of magic has been the most time he’s spent with Keith in a long while. It’s bittersweet, the fact that he’s able to actually absorb Keith in whole only because of this ‘curse.’ 

He wishes it were different, that’s all. 

Keith has been regaling him with tales and anecdotes of his travels that has Lance smiling till his cheeks hurt, and it’s like nothing has ever kept them apart. But there’s also a difference that he can’t help but pick out. Like how Keith’s eyes shine brighter when he talks about the dragons he’s met, or how his smile broadens almost without his knowing because he’s so engulfed in what he’s saying, or how his shoulders move more loosely when he laughs or eats or makes conversation with his siblings. He carries this new brand of confidence that Lance hasn’t seen before, and it’s not like Keith had been unconfident before but this feels like a new layer and it’s so — _nice_.

And despite the rather chaotic mess they’ve wound up in, Lance feels shrouded in a euphoric safe kind of lightness, seeing Keith like this.

But time eventually begins to stretch. 

A week passes right before their eyes with no word back from Pidge, and it doesn’t take too long for Keith to grow antsy. Lance feels it too, but not as strongly as Keith seems to be bottling up.

His leg bounces over the ground where they sit in Lance’s room, a book held in one hand while he taps the arm of the couch with the other. Lance leans closer and tilts his head at him. “You doing okay over there?” he asks, and while Lance is no stranger to relentless fidgeting when nervous, Keith has been ruminating for what has to be like twenty minutes now.

“I feel like we should be doing something,” he says, frowning at his book before snapping it shut and tossing it onto the table. 

“I know,” Lance murmurs. “But the chances of a nymph revealing herself to us is… really unlikely.” 

“We can go to Allura,” says Keith, like he’s had the idea in his head all along. “She might know something. Or we can try to find the person who did this to you.”

“Mylian is days away, and we have to be careful about this. It’s magic. If other kingdoms get word that someone tried to _curse_ me… it won’t end well. Or easily. And how are we going to find anyone without a lead?”

Keith sags against the couch, glowering. “I don’t like not doing anything. We don’t know enough about what’s going on.” 

“And we will, when Pidge gets back,” Lance says, although he isn’t all too sure about that, either. “We have to be patient for this one. If Pidge doesn’t find anything… then we’ll take a different approach. This is safe, for now.” 

And later on that day, when Lance is reminded that the Festival of Sea is coming up by a rather fretful Hunk, he thinks he really shouldn’t have expected the duration of this to be so easy. 

“It’s not like I can just not go,” Lance complains to Keith that night while they’re cleaning up in the bathroom. Now, actually _using_ the bathroom was a whole other ordeal that Lance would rather not think about right now. 

“I know,” responds Keith, rinsing out his mouth and reaching for a towel. “But maybe you can.” 

Lance lets out an inquisitive sound. “Are you suggesting we actually go? Like this?” 

“We’re both expected to attend. It won’t be so different from any other year.”

“Except that I happen to be cursed this year,” Lance comments dryly. 

He looks up from where he’s rummaging in his cabinet and cocks a brow at him, to which Keith thins his lips. “The festival lasts three days, Keith. If we’re gonna be glued to the hip the whole time and sleep in each other’s tents people might, you know, get the wrong idea.” 

Keith shifts and Lance can feel his arm brush over his from how close they’re standing together. They used to share a tent all the time when they were little, though now things are… different. 

Keith reaches over and grabs the skin-care products Lance has clutched in his hands and nods towards the counter. “I’ll do these for you,” he says, and Lance looks as though he’s trying to hide an amused grin. 

“Just because _we’ve_ known each other for as long as we have doesn’t mean you actually know my skin-care routine,” he says, but hops up on the counter anyway. Keith quickly steps in between his legs, and Lance presses them in so they’re touching Keith’s waist.

Keith stares hard at the bottles in his hands, and Lance takes to watching him, not trying to hide a trace of the delight that crinkles around his eyes. Keith looks suspiciously between Lance and one of the bottles in particular, as though parsing him for hints but not really wanting to. Lance can’t help the fondness that squeezes his chest tight, though he stays quiet, waiting. 

Keith holds it up and declares, “This one.” 

Lance holds the eye-contact for a minute, wanting to draw this out because it’s doing funny, tingly things to him, and then finally nods with a small chuckle. “Correct! Lucky guess.” 

Keith’s lip twitches as he unscrews the bottle and squeezes out the moisturizer over his palm. He brings a finger up after coating it gingerly and lightly dots Lance’s face with it. Lance lets his legs relax. When Keith starts softly rubbing it in, he speaks. 

“I don’t care, you know,” says Keith, quietly in the threadbare space between them. “What idea they’ll get, or whatever.”

It’s like a turn has been switched, and Lance is startled by the intensity of his gaze, how dark and serious his eyes look this close, how the glint of the lights surrounding them makes them almost shimmer as Keith glances this way and that over Lance’s face, fingers a tender caress against his skin. It’s a little too much, a little too overwhelming, having his attention so wholly on him like this and saying things like that. It’s dangerous, is what it is. 

“You should,” Lance manages, and he hates how beaten and choppy it sounds coming out of him. Keith’s eyes flick right into his, like he knows what he’s about to say. Lance doesn’t want to. But he knows he should. “You have a fiancé.” 

It’s an arranged marriage, one that technically hasn’t happened yet, but the fact that it _will_ in the near future is enough to prove Lance’s point. Keith doesn’t ever acknowledge the marriage more than the political ploy that it is, but still. Lance isn’t comfortable with it in the way at all. If it were under different circumstances then perhaps it’d be different – he wouldn’t have a whole kingdom’s reputation depending on his every move, but that’s not how it is. 

“And you love the festival,” Keith says without much forethought. “I know you do. You don’t just go for appearances, you go because you want to.” 

Lance heaves a sigh. “That’s not the point of this conversation.” 

“You’re my best friend,” Keith rebutes, brushing the remaining spots of cream down the side of Lance’s cheek with his thumb, stopping to hold onto his chin. “You’ll always be my best friend. I’m gonna be here for you no matter what, Lance. Nothing is going to get in the way of that.”

“I know.” Lance tries to brave through some sort of smile, but it feels wrong and weak and guilty on his lips. “I’m just looking out for you.”

Keith drops his hand over his and Lance holds onto it, swallowing something bitter and lumpy down his throat. “You’ve gotta let me look out for you, too.” 

“Okay, okay,” Lance mumbles, thumbs working over Keith’s fingers. They feel rough and blistered and calloused, probably as a result of his voyage. But they feel nice in his own hands, sheltered and warm. He suddenly has the unyielding desire to lean forward and bury his face in his shoulder, wants to hold him here until the untidy, overarching feeling in his chest sputters and dies out. But instead, he picks up one of his bottles and shoves it onto Keith’s palm. Keith blinks at it, and Lance tilts his head at him.

“What? You didn’t think that was it, did you?”

Keith rolls his eyes as he says, “Of course not,” but the smile he’s wearing is so utterly exasperated in the most adoring way. In the face of it, Lance can only offer a small smile back, helpless to how it melts and seeps through his ribcage as though to relocate its place there. It settles snuggly, like a vital piece has finally made its way back home.

  
  


* *

  
  


Lance lays back against the arm of the sofa, reading through a scroll of detailed complaints from villagers. He hums as he goes through them all, makes questioning noises here and there, and grouses when he reads something that he already knows will be more of an arduous ordeal. He says something to himself as he scribbles reminders onto another piece of parchment. The whole page is basically covered, and that doesn’t include the ones he made for the week prior.

Keith sits on the other side of the couch, bent over Lance’s legs in his lap to write on his own vellum. He’s been at it for quite a while now, and Lance wonders what it is that’s got him so focused. He wiggles his toes and raises a foot up, nearly poking Keith on the nose. Keith only grabs his ankle and pushes his foot back down with his unoccupied hand, and continues writing. Lance looks down at his scroll and then back at him, leaning in to poke his side. Keith gives him a grunt, which Lance readily takes. 

“What are you working on so diligently?” he inquires, pressing closer to get a better look. Keith raises his forearm to stop him from getting any closer and Lance pouts, though Keith isn’t looking to see it.

“It’s nothing, don’t worry about it,” says Keith, shaking out his shoulders. “You’ll… find out about it later,” he promises, in a low, almost secretive tone. 

“Oh? Well now I’m more curious than ever!” Lance says, though he doesn’t continue to pry any further. He props his cheek over a fist and looks over the tasks he has written down for himself. “Looks like I’m going to have to bargain with the elves again, so that should be fun,” he comments, tone the entire opposite of someone who’s about to have fun. 

Keith actually humors him and looks up from his work. “What did they do?”

“They’re not letting anyone enter the forest. And people need wood, deer, you know how it goes.”

“Whatever their reason, they’re probably right,” Keith mutters before turning back around. Lance laughs and stares up at the ceiling. 

“Not going to argue with you there. But fair’s fair. We have a treaty for a reason. The elves have a tendency to forget that, and I just have to remind them, I guess.”

Keith nods as he writes. “If anyone can do it, it’s you,” he says, as though it were nothing, like it’s some side comment that doesn’t light Lance up inside. He even has the gall to continue. 

“Remember when the Queen of Balmera personally came to ask you to talk to the pixies there because they were swapping the villager’s belongings every night? Including her own? Some of her jewelry might have ended up in Marmora Square, even.” 

Lance can’t help the uproar of laughter that consumes him at the memory, squealing delightedly in his seat. “Oh Spirits, I remember that! Poor Shay was at her wits end. Pixies are honestly so tricky, but show them anything bizarre that they can get their tiny little mischievous hands on and then poof–” he flashes his hands out and shimmies his fingers “–they’re someone else’s problem.” 

Keith chuckles that low laugh of his, sparking something wild in Lance’s heart. He thinks, no he _knows_ , his heart is beating to the sound of it, to the lilt of it. “And you gave them peanuts. And then somehow, they invented the delicacy that is peanut sauce.” 

Lance cackles, wrapping his arms around his waist with the force of it. “Oh yeah, they _did_ didn’t they? I still can’t believe that happened! A delicious victory, truly.”

Keith sighs and pats Lance on the knee. “So, you’ve got this,” he strokes his thumb over his knee reassuringly before diving back into what he’s writing, looking somewhat frenzied about the act – as though he can’t wait to either finish it up or get back to it, which enders Lance to no end – and Lance smiles to himself. He didn’t think he needed the encouragement, but boy is it nice to hear it come out of Keith like that. 

Having spent most of the day working, he sags and twiddles his thumbs around, thinking. His eyes land on the bookshelf across the room, packed tightly with a range of books from top to bottom. Witchcraft, the history of magic, biology, botany, more witchcraft. He feels that familiar itch in his hands — had felt it for most of the week but couldn’t give in to that desire — the pull towards a certain book sitting right behind him. He glances at Keith, who’s duly distracted, and reaches over to grab the bound set of parchment behind him, tucking it against his chest inconspicuously. 

He sifts through his drawings, looking through with a bit of longing. He hasn’t been able to draw since this whole fiasco started. 

It isn’t always the most pleasing thing, looking through his creations and drawing up meek criticisms in the back of his head. But he ignores them, mostly, because he can also see his progress with every flip of the page. He passes through hippogriffs, pegasi, griffins, sea serpents, a bunch of plants. When he lands on one in particular, he freezes, fingers holding up the next page mid-turn. 

He feels himself soften when he sees it. The image of a young dragon, holding up his crimson colored wings and timidly staring down at the ground. Dark scales run down his neck and over his tail, his stomach and front highlighted in red and black accents. His face is hidden beneath the mane that still remains in his dragon form, and it’s no doubt that this is Keith.

Lance reaches out and touches the page, feels a tiny, reminiscent smile tug at his lips. He remembers this day vividly, as well. They’d only been ten years old and had met that previous year. Keith had been closed off when Kings Adam and Shiro adopted him and introduced the new prince to the three other Kingdoms. Lance remembers being wildly curious about the other boy, though Keith had been a tough nut to crack. After a year of consistent visitations and festivities and galas, they’d actually started to feel like friends.

Lance and the children of neighboring Kingdoms had been visiting the Kingdom of Marmora to celebrate the Phoenix of Marmora’s rebirth. Keith had asked him to come out to the gardens after the ceremony, looking very reserved and somewhat reluctant about it. Lance had been supremely curious. But after the day-long ceremony, when they finally got to sneak into the gardens, Keith had looked tense. He’d been chewing his lips raw, consistently cracking his fingers and worrying them as he paced back forth.

It had worried Lance, had him asking if he was alright. Keith had grimaced, but clenched his teeth and scowled at the ground before picking his head back up and asked, intensely and almost defensively, “Are you scared of me?”

Lance didn’t have to think twice about it, really. It seemed laughable to even consider. “No. Why would I be scared of you?” 

Keith had shrugged, but nodded to himself like he’d been persuading himself, encouraging himself. “Okay,” he breathed. “Okay.” 

And then he had begun to shift. And Lance didn’t allow himself to blink for fear of missing it – the way Keith seemed to grow taller, his skin changing color, his build expanding, his back caving in to allow his wings to shutter out, and Lance had felt like he could buzz out of his own skin at the sight of his friend, who also happened to be a _dragon_. 

He’d heard things, sure, but he never saw it for himself and never asked Keith outright, since Keith himself never brought it up.

“Amazing,” he had stared in awe, though Keith had his head ducked down, wings protruding out on either side of him like he didn’t know what to do with them. The midnight gleam of the moon shone over his scales and they carried a shimmer down his back, all the way to his tail. Lance thought he had looked like pure unrefined magic. “Amazing,” he had said, again. 

Eventually, Keith had looked up and Lance remembered thinking that his eyes still looked the same.

He reached out and Keith immediately flinched, like he was unsure what to make of his intentions. “Can I touch your wings?” he had asked to clarify, and if Lance thought he’d never see a confused dragon — much less a dragon at all, really — in his life, well, he was wrong. 

After a moment, Keith had nodded and Lance beamed like a child seeing fireworks for the first time. He doesn’t quite remember how they felt, but he remembers being the most ecstatic he’d ever been when he got to touch them. 

When Keith shifted back he’d said, “I can’t control it sometimes… so I wanted to show you before it happens when I don’t want it to. Until I learn to control it this might happen,” he’d winced through it, like it pained him to have to show Lance or that he had to deal with this at all, though he remembers thinking it was the most ridiculous thing for him to look so unnerved about letting Lance into this part of his life. And then he’d asked, “So… how about now?” 

“Oh, I know! How about you try to fly with me on your back–” 

“No!” Keith had blurted, though it had been a spirited sound, like he was restraining the need to laugh. “I was... going to ask if you’re scared of me now.”

Lance had cocked his head to the side cluelessly. He knew that he should be scared, but all he could really focus on was how unbelievably cool it all was. “Do you want me to be?”

“No,” Keith had answered quickly, shaking his head. “The kids before… were scared. So I thought…”

“But you’re still Keith!” he had exclaimed, hands splayed out in front of him as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Keith seemed to relax considerably at that and Lance, oblivious to how much this must mean to him, had said, “Hey, can you breathe fire in this state too?!”

He chuckles quietly to himself now. He hadn’t seen him shift ever since that day 10 years ago. He doesn’t think Keith had ever shifted since then. He wonders how he might have changed, how big he must be now that he’s older. He wonders if there’ll ever be a time where he’ll be comfortable enough to shift again. If he’s already done so while he was away. 

Emotion lodges it’s way into his throat and before he knows it he’s wrapping his arms around Keith, who thankfully seems to have put his quilt down at just the right second. 

“Lance?” Keith questions, sounding surprised. 

It takes a second, but Keith’s arms wind their way around him and they tingle over his clothes, against his back. Lance lays his head over his shoulder and it kind of hurts to lean into him in this position, but he doesn’t care. Keith squeezes him a little, and Lance does the same around his shoulders. 

“You okay?” 

Lance nods against him and only says, “This is nice.” 

“What… do you mean?” 

“You, being here,” he says, despite the heat that suffocates his cheeks. “It’s nice.” 

“Oh.”

“I missed you,” he admits, and his heart throbs with it. It scares him, how much he can miss him. How even though he’s right here, he still misses him. 

Keith sighs and fits his head into the crook of Lance’s neck, his words grow muffled there, the heat of his words dancing over his skin. “I missed you, too. It’s been… a while, huh?” 

Lance laughs but it sounds garbled and worn. “You could say that, yeah.” He pulls back to look at him. Their faces are close like this, noses nearly knocking together if they lean in just so, and it’s a breathtaking, mind-blowing thing, how everything feels like it’s disappeared – every worry, every problem – when he’s in the center of Keith’s gravity.

“I don’t know if it’s this whole curse situation, but it feels like… things have changed,” Lance doesn’t mean to say it, but looking at Keith right now just makes him want to be honest. Keith rubs his thumbs in little circles over Lance’s ribs, and he contracts whatever comfort he can from it. 

“You think so?” Keith says, not as surprised by it as Lance thought he would be. He tilts his head to the side, and it’s a slight movement but his hair shifts with it and Lance resists the urge to brush his bangs out of his face, to follow down the length of it and caress the scar that slopes up his cheek. 

“I don’t know...” he trails off, something sparking and lighting up inside him. A part of him instinctively and intrinsically whispers, _but loving you has been constant._

“What do you mean you don’t know, you’re the one who said it,” Keith says, and Lance is suddenly very aware of his arms draped over Keith’s shoulders, of Keith still holding him there. 

“I think the world around us is changing,” he murmurs. “It just – feels different. You feel different.”

“Different how?”

Keith is smiling at him, that signature Keith smile where his lips are only tugging up slightly to the right but it’s so _bright_ and so _Keith_ and Lance can see that shine in his eyes again and it’s such an intoxicating, potent thing that he has to flail his arms around in an attempt at articulation, and point them at Keith to say, “You look happy. Happier.”

Keith twists his lips dubiously. “I’m stressed. I look stressed.”

“Okay, but you _feel_ happier.” 

“How does that make sense?”

Lance sighs and lets his hands slide down the length of Keith’s arms. He feels dangerous and daring when he meets his hands and clasps onto them. He looks back at him, and Keith blinks.

“You look like you found what you were looking for,” Lance says, softly and meaningfully. 

Keith sits there for a bit with those thick brows raised slightly, his lips parting. He huffs out a soft sound, like he knows something Lance doesn’t or he doesn’t believe how well Lance seems to read him. Lance thinks he prefers the latter. When their eyes meet, he’s wearing a comfortable, peaceful grin that pleases Lance immensely. “Yeah, you know what, I think I might have.”

He’s doing that thing again, where his dark eyes are darting around Lance’s face like he’s struggling to take in every bit of him. And Lance knows he’s probably way off base here, but it still flusters him and has him looking away before he has a chance to burn too brightly in front of him.

Abortedly, he reaches over to tug at a strand of his hair and says, “This is still the same, though.”

Keith rolls his eyes. “And you’re still obsessed with my hair.”

“Excuse me, I was never _obsessed_ with your hair.”

“Uh huh,” Keith pretends to agree, and Lance has to clamp his mouth shut because he feels the need to smile as hardly as his cheeks will let him. Or laugh. Or both.

 _I’m happy for you,_ he wants to say. _I want to go to the highlands with you and see how much it’s shaped you and how much you shaped it._

Instead, his stomach growls.

“Uh,” Lance says, intelligently. He pulls his hands away before he holds on forever and slips his feet off of Keith’s lap. He clears his throat.

“Hungry?”

“Kind of,” he mumbles, a little resentfully. They skipped dinner since eating with the rest of his family has felt more like a very obvious, very silent investigation. 

Keith hums and holds his hand out to him. “Want to eat in the kitchens? We can ask Hunk to come with,” he says, as though he’s read his mind.

Lance takes his hand and stands up. There’s a groan waiting to be released in his throat, perhaps a conglomeration of the words left unsaid, of a moment partially ruined, but he forces himself to swallow it down. “Yes please.”

  
  


* * 

He remembers. He remembers coming back home and feeling something unfurling like a blooming flower in his chest, in his fingers. He remembers sitting in his mother’s study with a piece of parchment splayed out in front of him, ink blotches staining the wooden surface around his arm. He remembers gripping his quill too lightly, and then too tightly. The tool feeling indescribably new in his hand, despite having wielded it many times before. He remembers Keith in the garden, his shimmering scales and his giant wings and his clawed talons and the slight contrast between the light red of his belly and the dark red of his back, and he remembers thinking — _I want to draw._

* *

  
  


Lance wakes in the middle of the night with a start, the feeling of falling crashes over him and has him twisting as though in an attempt to catch his rapidly running heart. Belatedly, he realizes his head is resting against Keith’s dark, curled locks. He almost thumps his head against him in his rude awakening, and there’s this pressure on his shoulder that’s begging him to turn around, but he stays in place when he registers how close Keith is next to him. 

It’s hazy at first, the sweltering of the night and the nearness of him and the daze of his eyes and the instant constriction of his chest. 

Keith’s face is squished against his pillow, his usually expressive eyebrows are completely still, and Lance is faced with the need to push back the strands of his hair that have fallen over his face, a rather urgent desire he’s been holding back lately. He sighs and forces himself to look away, scooting back to create some space between them. Their hands are still tied together, hot and sweaty and pasty and light. 

He feels more awake than ever.

The movement must startle Keith, though, because he tugs on his hand and blinks his eyes open with a squint. He stays like that for a moment, just looking at him. Reorienting. Lance winces apologetically.

“You okay?” he asks in a deep, sleep ridden tone. 

“Yeah, sorry,” Lance mumbles. “I just woke up. Weird dream.” 

Keith hums, tugging on his hand again and pulling Lance in. “Stay close,” he murmurs before shutting his eyes and sinking further into his pillow. Lance bites his lip, closes his eyes, and tries very hard to _breathe._

“I’m pretty sure that took the sleep right out of me,” Lance manages to say before he can combust, turning over onto his back with a grunt.

“It’ll come back.” 

“What expert advice you have.”

Keith huffs, but the conversation stops there. Lance stares up at the ceiling, feeling annoyingly jumpy. He chews on the inside of his cheek, licks at his teeth, tries closing his eyes and going back to sleep. 

Half an hour later and he’s back to staring up at the ceiling. He turns on his side, and then back when that doesn’t help. 

“You want to go out for a walk?” Keith asks in the middle of his fitful turn. When Lance looks at him, his eyes are still closed. 

“Go back to sleep,” Lance says, a little guiltily. “I’ll sleep eventually.” 

Despite that, Keith sits up and stretches his neck out with a yawn. “Everyone is asleep, we’d get around easier.” 

“You still look half-asleep.”

Keith turns his hooded eyes at him, though it’s softened by his slightly puffy eyes and the pillow crease that slides across his cheek. He promptly raises their tied hands as though making his point. “You still walk around until you get tired, don’t you?”

“I’m not going to make you forfeit your sleep over this, just go back to sleep please.” 

“I’m awake,” Keith says, ironically while trying to suppress a yawn. Lance raises a brow at him, and Keith continues staring at him. It instantly feels like a challenge, neither one of them back down until Keith throws off their sheets and Lance lets out an over-dramatic sigh. 

They end up going to the outer court, near the stables. The grass is long and ticklish against his legs, the night bringing in a chill that has him hugging his arms around himself. They reach Blue’s stall and he gives her a scratch behind her ear, combing his fingers through the tuft of hair between her eyes and down her crest. Keith leans against the stall door and watches him with something serene about him, his head tilting against the wood, his hair a tangled sprawl, his arms lax and open, the stars shimmering and the trees whispering behind him.

A tingle rises in his stomach and dances up his chest, like dandelion petals gone astray in his lungs. The wind filters through his bangs, skims across his skin. Their toes touch. 

“Hey, tell me more things about dragons,” Lance says, when the silence feels a little too soft, a little too tender. 

Keith hums, the sound velvet and smooth. “What do you want to know?”

“Anything. Everything.”

Keith huffs a laugh. “I don’t think you want to be here all night.”

 _Try me,_ he wants to say. _I’d talk forever with you if I could._

“Then tell me whatever comes to mind first,” he says instead.

Keith taps his foot as he thinks, head knocking back against the stall. If it weren't for his foot, Lance would think he’s about to fall right back to sleep.

And then he lifts his head to say, “Dragons guard the gate to the afterlife.”

“Whoa, seriously?” Lance’s mouth drops as he lets out a little sound of amazement. 

“Yeah, after they die.”

“Like, do they let people _in_?” he asks curiously. 

“Something like that. They’re like overseers. Guardians. Those in the afterlife usually go to them if they have… questions.”

Lance tilts his head at him. “What kind of questions?” 

“Whatever questions people have in the afterlife.”

That, for some reason, gets Lance going. 

“Do they tell them about their lives on Earth? Do people even _remember_ their lives on Earth?” he asks, looking very frightened about the possibility. Keith pulls his lips up into an amused smile as he shakes his head at him.

“Do you really want to have an existential crisis right now?” 

Lance pouts and scrunches his nose at him, though the question he wants to ask rests on the edge of his tongue, an apprehensive, weary thing. The air shifts ever so slightly as he gears up to ask him, “So does that mean… you’re going to guard the afterlife some day?”

Keith shifts and ties his arms around his chest as he looks down at the ground. He kicks a stray piece of hay to the side. “Possibly.” 

Lance hums. “You sound _very_ thrilled about the prospect.” 

“It’s just strange to think about.” Keith shrugs, looking back at him. “I can’t really wrap my head around the whole concept.” 

Lance nods. He finds it unsettling, too. The afterlife has always sounded… lonesome to him. He can’t quite wrap his head around it, either. He’s wondered about it before, whether or not their memories would be intact, whether or not he would remember his parents and his siblings and his friends and _Keith._ He’s wondered if he’ll remember what it had been like to fall in love and be in love and feel everything so heavily. 

And now he wonders how life after this might go for Keith if he were to become this guardian, if it’d be as lonely as it sounds and if Lance would have no choice but to watch him be just that — if the only thing he could do would be to ask Keith, _“What happened on Earth? Who was I?”_ and Keith may or may not be able to answer him and they’d walk away like none of this ever mattered. Like he never mattered and they never mattered to each other.

He resumes petting Blue’s fur as a repulsive taste crawls down his throat and sinks deep into his stomach. He almost shivers. Yeah, he’s really not in the mood for _any_ of that right now.

Although he also thinks he would fall in love all over again, that no matter the clean slate he may or may not be given, he’d meet Keith again and love him. Whether it be in a different world where they could be different people, he’d still love him again. He knows he’d love him again. 

“What else?” he says, a tremble to his voice. “Tell me more.” 

Keith gives Blue’s back a scratch, appearing pensive before he says, “I... learned some dances.” 

“Oh?” He brightens at that. “What kind of dances? You have to show me!” 

Keith snorts and stretches his arms above his head, and Lance tries very hard not to ogle at the flex of his toned biceps. He swallows and keeps his eyes fixed on his nose. That should work.

“What? Come on, you can’t mention a dance and not show me!” Lance protests, jutting out his bottom lip and putting on his saddest puppy dog eyes. 

“You’ll have to do it with me,” Keith says while nudging his leg with his foot. Lance doesn’t hesitate to take him by the wrist and walk them a few steps away from the stall. 

“Alright then,” Lance declares, and Keith’s answering grin is charmingly lopsided and borders on cordially amused. It encourages the butterflies in his stomach and also makes him think, _worth it,_ all at the same time.

“It’s usually a dance for one dragon, but we’ll make a compromise,” he says, before slipping Lance’s hand in his.

He goes through the movements and Lance follows along, meaning he tries very hard not to stumble his way through. At first, it’s easy to keep contact by sticking their backs together, or their hands or their legs, and perform the according movements. He quickly becomes swamped with a tidal wave of feelings with every move, of glee and of determination and of pride and of love. So much love. 

Keith moves with assurity in every step, never once looking down at his feet, his eyes mirroring Lance’s own. And that tenderness, that intimate feeling, is back with a sturdy and robust vengeance. 

He’s suddenly drawn back to the past, when they were 15 years old and would sneak up to the attic and work on fixing Marco’s old phonograph any chance that they could get. How they eventually had to ask Sir Aleko to help them with it despite wanting to do it all on their own, and how jovially they had danced around each other after hearing the first note of the shrill, static voice.

He’s brought _right_ back to the present when Keith crouches down in front of Lance halfway through, holds onto his hip to keep them in contact, and stands back up in front of him with a cunning smile on his face, like he did it on purpose when he saw he wasn’t paying attention. And Lance feels his skin simmer with heat and everything that makes him want to grab Keith by the collar and kiss him. 

Keith’s movements become sluggish very quickly, so Lance grabs him around his broad shoulders and says, “You’re way too sleepy for this,” and Keith’s laugh sounds like it’s coming straight out of his chest and the world feels a little less intense and a little more like it just might be endlessly starry around them.

“Is it working for you, too?” Keith asks partially through a yawn and a smile, his arms having wormed to hold Lance around his back.

Needless to say, Lance feels a little _too_ worked up, but there’s this lull in his veins now that he’s standing there with Keith, this pull that makes him want nothing more than to curl up in his bed next to him. 

“What was that dance for? Does it represent anything?” Lance wonders as they make their way back inside, conjoined at the elbow. 

“It’s a ceremonial dance for the summer solstice,” Keith answers as he dumps himself back onto the bed. “Or... the solar eclipse. Or the one celebrating a dragon’s one-hundred-and-twentieth year.” 

Lance chuckles as he gets back into his sheets, still warm with the mold of their shapes. 

“They’re very similar dances,” Keith says like he’s trying to defend himself, and Lance nods sleepily, unable to control the dopey grin that he knows is glued onto his face. His pillow is soft underneath his head, his chest feels weightless, his legs floaty. 

“Good night, Lance.” He hears Keith say, and it sounds both so far away and so close, like a dream he’s waiting to fully land into. Lance thinks he mumbles it back, as airy and feathery as it leaves him.

* *

  
  


When the day of the festival arrives, they plan to head out with the King and Queen and the rest of Lance’s siblings a couple hours before midnight. It’ll take them just as much time to arrive at the bay and catch the full moon at its highest point, which is when the festival starts. The leaving part itself is a bit of a hassle. His family never leaves for any festivity without some fanfare, which he’d had to maneuver through as discreetly as he could, being tied to Keith and all. So, usually when he’d be in the main hall either arguing with or laughing at his siblings, he’d held them up with the claim of forgetting to pack his clothes. It’s not the best excuse considering they have servants for that type of thing, but it works because he’s been packing his own clothes for as long as he can remember. 

And just when he thinks he’s close to avoiding certain hazards, Pidge shows up. 

She comes bursting in through his bedroom door, her hair pointed in wildly different directions, her chest heaving like she’s been running halfway across the globe. Lance gawks at her, brain slow to catch up with the rest of him as she drops to her knees and pants heavily over the floor. 

“Oh...oh good, you… you haven’t–” she takes in a giant gulp of air, pressing a hand to her throat like it might make breathing easier “–you haven’t left yet.” 

“Are you okay?” Lance hurries over to her side, tugging Keith along with him.

“Doesn’t matter,” she wheezes, tipping her head up to look at them. She offers a brief smile, then clutches at her waist and winces through a painful sounding groan. “Okay, _that_ hurt.”

“Did you fight a griffin on your way here or something?” Lance kneels down to place a hand on her shoulder. 

“Were you chased?” Keith asks, and then with the beginnings of a promised threat in his voice: “Did they follow you?” 

“No, just give me a second,” Pidge denies with a wave of her hand. “I ran like the whole way back from the enchanted forest. Wanted to make sure I got here before you left for the festival. Which, if I may say, _terrible_ timing on the moon spirit’s part.”

“We didn’t think you’d be here until after it was over,” says Lance, feeling his nerves claw at his chest now that Pidge is here with possible answers. “But we’re glad you’re okay. We were getting worried.” 

She freezes for a moment, eyes shooting from Keith to Lance and then to the hand touching Lance’s arm, like she’d only just now recognized them. Lance blinks at her, and she curses beneath her breath. 

“What is it?” Lance asks, immediately concerned. 

“I – I need to talk to you.”

Keith leans in with him, looking like he’s close to bursting out of his cells. Pidge’s eyes harden and avert to the ground as she picks herself back up. She holds onto the strap of her satchel tightly, her knuckles turning red.

“I think I should say this to Lance, alone.” 

Lance immediately wants to argue, and Keith doesn’t look pleased, but Pidge holds a finger up and shushes them before they can start. “I know, I know, anything you know Keith will know, too. But this is just a precaution. I just… think you’d want to hear this by yourself first.” 

“I’m gonna end up on the ceiling,” he mutters, his hold over Keith’s elbow loosening. 

“I know.” She starts rummaging through her satchel and then pulls out a vial with bright green liquid sloshing inside. Lance and Keith share a look at the sight of it before turning to her in question. “This should temporarily wane the effects of the spell. So when you drink this, you won’t need Keith to tether you to the ground until all four of these orbs,” she pauses to pull out a bracelet with aquamarine pearls attached to them, “Turn white. I have seven vials, and you can only take one per day.”

“Oh,” Lance blinks, looking startled. “Um, okay, but I’m guessing that’s not the cure.”

Pidge withers and shakes her head, frowning. “No. But do you want to take one now? I think you’ll want to sit down for this.” 

“Well,” Lance sighs heavily. “That sounds reassuring.”

Pidge pokes the vial into his chest and he grabs it sullenly. Twisting the cork off, he looks at it dubiously before glancing back at Pidge and Keith. 

“It’s not gonna burn through your stomach or anything,” Pidge offers, and Lance swallows back his nerves. Keith rests a hand over his shoulder in support and gives him an encouraging nod. 

Puffing out his cheeks, Lance tilts the vial to the side and back, then downs it in one go. When it’s all gone, he pulls back and smacks his lips at the citrusy taste. “Hm. Fruity.” 

“Okay then, I guess I’ll wait outside...” Keith announces, looking more than hesitant about it, and then squeezes Lance’s shoulder. “Should I…”

“Yeah,” Pidge says, and Lance closes his eyes when Keith pulls his hand away, waiting for that demanding eerie pull from above, but it doesn’t come. He opens his eyes and exhales in relief, touching a hand to the top of his head. “Alright, my head won’t be bonked today.” 

When Keith leaves, Pidge gestures for the bed. 

Okay, she wasn’t kidding. 

Lance tries not to panic when he sits over the edge of his bed. “I think I need you to just tell me really quickly because you’re freaking me out a little bit, and my family is probably going to murder me if we’re even a second late to the festival.”

“Okay,” Pidge chews on her lips and oh wow, okay, this must be really bad. “Lance,” she starts, and he holds his breath. “Your curse… this spell, it’s because of your feelings for Keith.”

Lance stills, everything seems to still except for the raging pound of his heart against his rib cage. His first instinct is to deny it, but that even gets stuck in his throat. Pidge doesn’t know about his feelings, Hunk doesn’t even know, he never told them, never dared to. But Lance recalls the way she had looked at them, like she’d been connecting the dots and that means… “How… how–”

“It’s the nature of the curse, or spell. The nymph thinks you were hit by a Lovethorn faery,” she hurries to explain. “It was either that or you’re turning into a faery — the symptoms are very similar apparently — _but_ it’s like your feelings for him are literally dragging you off your feet. Holding onto the person you have those feelings for is the only way to counteract these effects and keep you on the ground. And since Keith is that person… that means you’ve been affected by a Lovethorn faery.” 

And there it is. His breath leaves him unsteadily, his hand moving to clasp over his lips. 

“The cure,” Pidge continues after giving him a moment to process _that_ half. “Is for him to return your feelings… out loud. He has to tell you. And that’ll break the spell.” 

Lance looks disbelievingly at her, then begins shaking his head like that might lessen the impact of it all. “You can’t be serious,” he says, pulling a face when he feels his stomach begin to churn. Pidge wears a sympathetic frown, still gripping onto her satchel nervously, like there’s more she has to say. Lance’s eyes widen as he gapes at her. “There’s _more_?” 

“It’s just…” she trails off, looking the most uncomfortable Lance has ever seen of her. “There’s another way to break the spell. But you’re not going to like it.” 

“What is it?” he breathes, holding onto that thin thread despite the warning. 

She huffs, then pulls out a bottle from her satchel. This one is much larger than the one she had just given to him, and the liquid is startlingly dark. He doesn’t feel good about it already. 

“If you drink this, you’ll forget every memory you have of Keith, including your feelings for him. And the spell will be broken.” 

Lance’s heart drops. He thinks if he weren’t standing up, his knees would buckle. They shake beneath him now, his fingers trembling as he brings them up to sink his head into. “What?” he croaks brokenly, his eyes burning. 

The space next to him dips, Pidge’s hand coming down to grip his knee. “Lance…” 

“What... am I going to do?” He drops his hands and turns to her, tears escaping down his cheeks. “He’s… Pidge, I think he’s the love of my life,” he chokes out, the pain in his chest swelling like nothing he’s ever experienced before. It’s like he can feel his heart weeping, trembling, rebeling. 

He leans his head in his hands again as he feels more tears threaten to spring loose. Pidge gives him a firm squeeze on the shoulder and wraps an arm around him, though he can’t hold any of it back. It just leaves him in the shake of his shoulders and the frustration of his tears. “How – how can I just forget him? I can’t, Pidge, I can’t.”

“You don’t have to,” she says, pulling back. Lance can see her eyes are rimmed red. “You can tell him; you _should_ tell him.”

Lance’s face scrunches in doubt as he grips onto the side of the mattress, nails digging into the thick of it. 

“Is it because of Sage?” Pidge presses, leaning in to glance at him. “Because it’s only a political marriage, Keith clearly doesn’t feel any sort of way about him.” 

“You know how I feel about political marriages.” He sniffs, the words coming out nasally. “I’m a prince. Keith and Sage are princes, too. How would that look for my kingdom? It’s not ideal for me to just up and tell Keith I’m in love with him and then have it be the end of it.”

“But your curse would be lifted,” Pidge tacks on, almost eagerly in the way she grabs at his arm, insisting. “I know it’s not what you wanted, but he’s your best friend. He’d understand if you didn’t want to go any further.”

“That’s assuming he returns my feelings. Which he probably doesn’t,” his voice leaves him strangled, choked on his aggravation. “I just – I don’t want to lose him, in any way.” He’d rather him stay in his life as he is, than tell him how he feels and just – _leave_ it like that. Like it means nothing but a couple words said to the wind, where they’ll roll away as though a pile of trampled leaves and be forgotten forever. 

“You’ll never know unless you do it,” Pidge continues, notwithstanding. “You just have to take a chance on this, Lance. And I _really_ don’t think anything is going to keep you two apart.”

Lance snorts, reaching up to wipe at his eyes with his sleeves.

“I’m serious. We’re talking about the same guy who gets you paintings by all those fancy artists you like from galleries that haven’t even been _open_ yet. You have a whole room full of them because of how many there are, and he hasn’t even stopped yet. That’s – that doesn’t even cover it, really,” she takes in a breath, swallowing apprehensively. “Look, I don’t know anything about love so I kind of suck at this, but if what you two have isn’t love… then I don’t know what it is at all.”

Lance just stares at her, and saying that he’s stunned might put it a little too simply. He tries to say something, anything, but his face has turned into a living inferno. He’s always known that what lies between him and Keith is strong and hardy and very much loving, even if it isn’t the kind that he feels for Keith in specific. It’s a bond that’s been overwrought with struggle, both internal and external. An innocent love born of friendship and acceptance and genuinity. He’s always been sure of that.

He just didn't think other people saw that too. 

“Since when are you good at comforting people?” he says, and feels emotion overwhelm him again. Pidge gives him a look and jabs him in the side, but it’s too soft for Lance to feel it.

“Watch it. But… I know how much he means to you. And how much you mean to him. And,” she pauses and looks at the floor, then shrugs something small. “You deserve to be happy.”

“Pidge,” says Lance, feeling his eyes burn all over again. “I’m going to hug you now.”

Pidge rolls her eyes with a tiny smile, like she’d expected this, and gives in to another hug. 

“Thank you,” he murmurs, chin resting over the top of her head. She hums. His chest still aches and he still doesn’t know what he’s going to do, but… he feels a little lighter, having a friend in his corner. He’s always dealt with his feelings privately, to talk about them with someone else is more liberating than he ever could’ve expected. “For doing this, and everything else.”

“It’ll work out,” Pidge says, pulling away. “It has to.”

And then there’s a knock on the door, followed by Keith saying, “Uh, Lance? We really need to go.”

Lance groans and swipes his hand down his face, not sure how he can face Keith knowing everything he does. Or how he can pretend that everything is okay at the festival, either. Making and withholding appearances is something he desperately doesn’t want to deal with right now.

“Should I hold onto this?” Pidge asks, holding up the ominous dark bottle. 

Dread stirs low in his stomach, something bitter clawing at the back of his throat. He can see his own worry-worn reflection staring back at him through the glass. Glazed eyes, troubled brows, pinched lips. 

Lance doesn’t let himself think about it and nods.

  
  


* *

  
  


(Lance’s first encounter with a pixie had been purely coincidental, and entirely mischievous. He had snuck out to the courtyard while the rest of his siblings were attending one of their regular meetings. He was supposed to be having his daily etiquette lesson with Sir Aleko, but those had been so arduously tedious and utterly _boring_ that he had decided it was time for a much needed break. 

So he had caught a bird, or six, and let them loose in his office.

It only created a bit of chaos, but it had been just what he needed to make his escape. 

The courtyard had been a main spot for quick movement, servants passing through it to get to the other side of the castle and back, so he knew he had good coverage coming out here. He had his jar with him, certain that this time he was going to catch a pixie. He’d spotted them before, always from afar. They were fast so whenever he’d approach them they’d flee before he could even notice, or tie his shoelaces together without him knowing and he’d be on the ground with a handful of grass in his mouth. 

So he knew he had to be quiet. 

He sat behind a bush and waited until he heard the familiar buzzing sound of their tiny wings flapping together. The pixie looked to be a Blue Tip, Lance had noticed by the color of the glow surrounding them. Almost like a lightning bug. He had sat up to ready his approach, only to stop when he noticed that something was off. 

The pixie seemed to be drifting downwards, only little bursts taking him up before descending back down again. Lance left his jar in the bush and quickly ran up to catch him before he could clash into the grass. The pixie looked startled and discombobulated, backing up against the curve of his fingers as Lance peered down at him.

“Why are you flying like that? Is your wing broken?” he had asked curiously, and the pixie gave him a sour, almost embarrassed nod.

“I’m traveling to Mylain in search of the witch they call Allura,” the pixie had declared. “She gave me new wings before so I know she’ll help me!” 

“I know Allura,” Lance had said, beaming down at the pixie.

“You do?”

“Yes.”

“How is that?” the pixie had asked, standing up to give Lance a once over. “I do not sense magic on you.” 

Lance had frowned and turned his nose up in resignation. “My parents speak to her parents frequently. I’m a royal, of course I know the daughter of Mylian!” 

“Oh. I see.” 

“I can take you to her if you can’t go yourself,” Lance had offered, accidentally shaking him in his hold as the idea rocketed through his head. 

“Whoa, hey! Be careful! My insides are only the size of your humanly toe!”

“Sorry!” 

And so Lance had traveled to Mylain on nothing but his horse at the age of 12 to help a pixie recover its wing. Later, when Sir Aleko found him and he was forced to return to the castle, Lance endured a ritualistic lecture from his parents that he'd heard only a million times before. He only had one thing on his mind, however. And he wanted to ask about it. He knew he shouldn’t push any further than he already had, but really, he couldn’t hold it back even if he wanted too. 

So it shouldn’t be very surprising when he opened his mouth to ask, “Why can’t humans use magic?” as soon as his mother had stopped talking. 

Her long, strung out sigh sounded exhausted yet secretly fond.

“Because that’s just how we are,” his mother had said, her hand gentle as it slid down his hair. 

“But magic is so _cool_. Allura fixed that pixie’s wing like it was never broken! She even gave him new wings before! We can’t do anything like that.”

“No, we can’t. But we do have something similar to it.”

Lance had gasped so strongly that he nearly fell into her lap from how far he was leaning into her. She smiled and brushed her hand through his hair again and said, “But I’m not sure I should tell you.”

“Why not!”

“Because you snuck off to a whole other realm on your own without letting me or your father know.”

Pouting, Lance had crossed his arms over his chest petulantly. “I wanted to help the pixie.”

“I know sweetie, but you can’t just run off like that.” 

“I know, I know,” he murmured, already having heard the same words mere minutes ago. He made sure to look extra disheartened, pouting down at his legs and bumping his foot against the floor. 

His mother shook her head with a hidden smile and relented. “Alright, alright. I’ll tell you.”

Lance whipped his face back to her so fast his neck might have cracked. She laughed and leaned in closer and Lance also brought his ear nearer and she said, “Love.”

His shoulders dropped. “What?”

“We have love!” 

_“Moooooom,”_ Lance had groaned insufferably, huffing as she continued to smile at him. “That’s not the same. Witches have that, too, don’t they?”

“That’s where we’re more similar than you think. Magic lives in those who love you,” she said, giving his tummy a little poke. “In their eyes. Their hands. Their trays of cinnamon apple tarts.”

Lance let out a little laugh and rolled his eyes. “How can you see it in those things?”

“You have to pay attention. It’s in the details you may not be looking close enough at. When you pick them out, it feels just like magic.” 

Lance had pulled his lips to the side in contemplation, considering. And then he peaked up at her and said, “But is it enough that it just _feels_ like it?” 

“If it makes you happy, then I think it is.”

Lance had hummed, kicking his feet into the air and letting them drop back down against his bed. “I want to believe you. So I will.” 

“That’s kind of like magic too, isn’t it?”)

  
  


* *

  
  


By the time he and Keith are outside, they’re all waiting for him within their own carriages. Concealed and within dodging distance. 

“It’s about time,” Marco drawls, halfway out of his carriage, like he was in the middle of getting out to go get him. “How much clothes can you possibly need for three days?”

“Watch your mouth, Marco,” he mutters while rushing towards his own carriage, highly aware of Keith’s hand resting over his back. He wonders if he’s forgotten that they don’t have to touch right now. “I’m here now so let’s go before anyone else tries to come out for me.”

“It’s probably not the clothes that held him up,” Rachel pops her head out the window of her carriage to say, smiling slyly at Lance. If it were under any other circumstance he would probably be thrown into a conniption at what she’s clearly insinuating, but he just doesn’t have the energy for that right now.

He only glares at her before shoving himself into the carriage, Keith following swiftly. 

They have to sit pressed close together since the rest of the space is taken up by baskets upon baskets of fruit that Lance had picked out for the festival. 

“Sorry about Rachel,” he snarls when the carriage starts to move. “You know how she is.” 

“It’s... fine,” Keith murmurs distractedly, and then more urgently asks, “So, what is it? Did Pidge find the cure?” 

Lance doesn’t look at him and swallows, feels his body go up in flames at the nonsequitur. He doesn’t know what to say. The knowledge is still so fresh and new, like an open wound, and picking at it right now is just... _way_ too much for him. He’s not prepared to talk about it so soon. It’s not just the cure he’s going to have to mention – it’s _everything_ else.

He doesn’t want to lie, not to Keith. Never to Keith. But he can’t tell him the truth, either. 

“She found it,” he says, eventually, stringing out the words. He focuses on the baskets of fruit sitting across from them. “I just... can’t tell you about it.” 

Keith is quiet for a moment too long before he asks, “Why not?”

“Because I can’t,” he says, wincing. And then decides, “Because I’ll tell you later.”

“Because you’ll tell me later,” Keith echoes flatly. “Why not now?”

“Because.”

“Because?”

“Because I said so.” 

“Really, Lance?” 

“Just – I can’t. Okay?” He turns his body towards the window, to end the conversation right then and there. He can feel the intensity of Keith’s stare still pointed at him, still proding, at a loss. The silence stretches out, and Lance thinks he can hear something inside his ribcage crack.

He doesn’t know how long he just stays like that. Staring out the window. Feeling the Earth wobble on its axis. It could be minutes, it could be hours. Every second that passes feels like a pinprick jamming into his neck. 

It doesn’t work out very well, and only feeds the nerves and dread in his stomach because there’s this weird tension – that he swears he can almost tangibly touch – stuffed between them now, and it’s so misplaced and so viscerally _wrong_ that the heft of it feels like it’s going to suffocate him _._ It doesn’t belong there. 

So it shouldn’t come as much of a shock when he finally has to break through it, timidly glancing at him out of the corner of his eye. He checks and checks and checks, until Keith leans back against the wooden paneling behind them and closes his eyes, his arms crossed.

And maybe it’s the despondency or the fear that’s rolling through his stomach, but Lance lets himself look. 

He looks at the slope of his nose, his long lashes, his chiseled jaw, the beauty marks dotted underneath his eye and over the top of his lip and on the side of his nose. He knows there’s one behind either ear, too. The suffocation lights up a bit, just at the sight of him. He looks, and breathes a little easier. He thinks, _I’m sorry._ He thinks, _I don’t know what to do._

It’s a doozy, trying to pinpoint the exact moment he began looking at him like this. Like he was both the spirit of the sun and the moon with a glow that’d rival anything and everything on this very Earth or beyond it, amid the furthest most smoldering points in space. Gone unseen by the human eye and somehow only he can look, only he can see, only he can take in such miraculous beauty. 

He bites his lip and averts his gaze to the window next to Keith. The sky is completely dark now, the purples and pinks and oranges of sundown hiding somewhere beneath the untraceable horizon. Much like the darkness looking back at him, the pit in his stomach grows larger and larger by the second. It’s horribly uncomfortable and makes him feel unnervingly defenseless. It feels like it’s preparing him for what’s coming, like it’s telling him, _this is only the beginning._

He hopes he can at least survive the festival in one piece. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


They reach the bay and the first sight Lance is granted is the moon, shining and glittering like a diamond high up in the sky. 

Villagers are also arriving in hordes. They come carrying blankets and sacks of food over their backs, bowing to him and Keith upon passing by. It’s always awkward, having to stop them mid-bow and then inevitably bowing back in return. 

He sees the flickering lights of faeries in the air, near the sea. They could be pixies, but when they shift into their larger forms, he knows they’re faeries. There are trolls sitting over the shore, half are staring up at the moon and the other half are pushing and tugging at each other, probably arguing. Alicorns stand in the distance, some fluffing out their wings and others sitting gracefully against the sand.

Everyone stands where they can and the bay quiets down as their attention falls on the moon, and the sea, and the stars. It’s an understanding sort of quiet, calm and collected. Some stand closer to the water, others farther away. Some close their eyes and hold their hands to their chests, holding silent conversations with the spirit of the moon and the sea. The alicorns fly around them, moving in a delicate circle in the sky. 

Lance knows he should be thinking of his family, of his people and friends. But it’s hard to think about anything at all besides the crushing weight over his heart. He genuinely feels ill, and it’s making him want to sit alone to catch his breath for a second. Just a second. 

What he does think about, what he hopes for, is for his curse to disappear when he wakes up tomorrow. For this day to not have been real. For Pidge to come to the festival tomorrow and tell him it was all one big, giant misunderstanding. 

It’s foolish, but he hurts. He hurts so much. 

When a hand slips into his, he turns to find Keith standing next to him again. “What are you doing?” Lance blurts out, quietly. 

Keith only points at the bracelet that sits over Lance’s wrist. Three of the orbs have gone white, with only one partially shaded in half. Right. Lance had almost forgotten about his temporary cure. 

Keith is looking at him with a nuanced pinch to his lips, a crease between his brows that Lance wishes would go away. Like he wants to say something but is holding himself back. Lance waits for it, and when it doesn’t come, he feels Keith give his hand a squeeze. Tightly, and long enough that when he releases it Lance knows it’s intentional. 

Lance realizes too late that he’s still looking at him, a dour mistake because the moon is shining brilliantly over him, castling an ethereal glow over his dark hair, his dark eyes. He thinks about telling him right here, right now. He thinks of saying, _I love you, did you know? Do you know how much I’ve always loved you? Do you know how vast it is, how I can’t think of the exact moment I knew I loved you? Because it feels like this constant, never-ending, ever-expanding thing? Do you know that it once made me feel like I could jump walls and climb mountains and paint the sky? Do you know how badly it’s tearing me apart right now?_

“Can I tell you something?” he asks, and his heart gives a lurch at the admission. 

Keith nods, and the weight of his hand suddenly feels like a ton. “Anything.” 

He thinks about it.

But he can’t. 

“I… can we sleep right now? The carriage made me a little sleepy,” is what he ends up saying.

He doesn’t want it like this. If he’s ever going to tell him, he wants to say it when it’s his own call. He thinks about how long he’s loved him, how long his heart had sung for him, and how unfair it is to have to just say it like this. Like it’s just a remedy he has to swallow down and be done with. Because it’s not. It’s so much more, it’s always been so much more. Keith is so much more.

Keith doesn’t say anything, like he’s doubting that’s what Lance had in mind, but he doesn’t voice it. He nods and they disperse with the rest of the crowd. Some people head back to their village if they live near enough, and others help with setting up the tents. They manage to set up their own tent before his last pearl goes out, luckily enough, and situate themselves inside.

When all their blankets and pillows are laid out, Lance fumbles with a stray blanket. He thinks they should probably be extra secure tonight, since they’re sleeping in a pliable tent, and he can’t drink another potion until tomorrow so... 

“Hey Keith,” he calls, and Keith comes back around from behind him with a hand on his shoulder. He settles into a crouch in front of him, their knees knocking together. 

Lance holds the blanket up. “I, um, think we should tie each other together with this blanket before we sleep.”

Keith skeptically looks between the blanket and Lance. Lance stares back, and Keith eventually gives him a grunt.

They give it a try back to back, the blanket coming around their middle to keep them attached. It squeezes against his stomach and his breath comes short and the darkness of the tent feels like it’s slowly creeping up to envelope him whole. 

It doesn’t take very long to give up on _that_ idea. 

Laying side by side, they stare up at the sheer material of the tent. Smoldering heat occupies the space between them. Lance thinks of bridging it. He also thinks of sleeping in the carriage. 

And then, Keith turns to him and says, “Come here.” 

Lance raises his brows at him. “What?” 

“Come here,” Keith says again, opening his arms this time like he wants Lance to slip inside them – and that’s exactly what he means, isn’t it?

“You want to spoon me,” he says it like a statement, a fact. 

Keith nods, though it looks like he’s trying really hard not to roll his eyes. His lips twitch. Lance feels his heart stutter in his chest. “Sure. Unless you have another idea.”

Lance does not.

He shifts slowly, and then turns around when he senses the heat that seems to be radiating off of Keith. Warm. He’s so warm. 

Keith’s arms come around his waist to hold him in place, tugging him closer so they’re pressed up against each other, keeping him close. Lance can feel the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest against his back. 

“I’m not going to let you go,” Keith whispers into the back of his neck. He feels goosebumps prickle in the wake of his words. “I promise.”

Lance only nods wordlessly.

He licks at his lips and surrenders to his fate. He can’t deny how being held in Keith’s arms sends a wave of calm into his otherwise chasm of a heart, how it steadies him and abates the awful trepidation that’s swallowed him whole. And when Keith’s breathing evens out, just enough that Lance thinks he’s not awake, he lets himself intertwine their fingers together and holds his hand to his chest like – like he’s _holding_ onto him _._

Whatever it is that does happen, Lance can’t forget this. He can’t forget Keith. He can’t.

  
  


* *

  
  


True to his word, Keith must have held tight to Lance the entire night because he wakes up still in his arms, face smushed into his sternum. Their lower halves are an entire jumble of their own, legs twined together like tangled rope. Keith’s leg is thrown over his, trapping Lance’s in between his thighs. He thinks it’s too firm for it to be an unconscious behavior, and he wonders if Keith slept at all last night if he’d been putting in the effort to keep them entangled together. 

At the castle if they slipped apart in the morning then Lance would just float up and hit the ceiling, which isn’t pleasant by any means, but at least the ceiling is solid and doesn’t give in easily unlike this tent would. If he drifted here then he might have taken the whole tent with him. 

He tilts his head back to look up at Keith, who appears to be snoozing. Lance watches him suspiciously, and the bare twitch of his brow makes him whisper out, “I’m awake. You can actually go to sleep now.”

“‘M sleeping,” Keith murmurs, though the tension of his body clearly gives out as he slumps over him, the grip of his arms and legs loosening around him. Lance huffs and rolls his eyes, but there’s this flourishing in his chest that sinks into his stomach and turns into an ache. 

He remembers the Festival of the Sea when they were younger, how they’d share a tent and talk way into the night without anyone knowing, sometimes ending up with their limbs all up in each other’s faces and then laughing heartily about it the next morning. He remembers their tent feeling like a sort of liberating space, how they could laugh and say whatever they wanted without the eyes of other royals hovering down their necks. 

He remembers when they were 16 years old and Keith had looked somber for the first time during the festival. 

He remembers the way Keith had sat on the shoreline and stared up at the moon imploringly, the way Lance, without even knowing what was wrong, immediately felt helpless at the sight of him looking so woebegone. 

When everyone had fallen fast asleep in their tents, Keith still sat out there all alone. Lance had sought him out and sat next to him deep in the night, legs pressed to his chest and not a word on his tongue. Waiting. Letting him know he was there. 

“Lance,” Keith had said, barely a murmur of his name. “Have you ever been in love?” he had asked, and then, before Lance could even react, “No, don’t answer that. Just… how do you know? That you’re in love?” It was a sudden and quietly grumpy thing, very Keith-like, but also gave off the impression that he’d been psyching himself out to ask it.

Lance had been caught unaware, not having expected him to ask something like that at all. But he’d considered him, and thought about the lessons he’s had to scarf down about royal duties, and proper etiquette for a prince, and talking couth with allies, and his mother and father’s jubilant praises as he excelled in swordfighting, like all his siblings before him. But he’d also looked to the moon and felt a sense of loss as it twinkled at him, as though winking at him in ridicule. Telling him, _“This is something you were not trained for.”_

But he had also remembered his mother that one night, and conversations about love and magic and everything in between.

“Isn’t it something you just know?” he’d said, digging his chin into his knees. “Like… you can’t stop thinking about them and you want them to be happy all the time, and maybe you want to kiss them, too. And be with them all the time.”

Keith, even though he had asked, was staring down at his hands. His shoulders were slumped and his expression hadn’t changed. Lance had leaned in to nudge him in the shoulder, and then said teasingly, “What? Are you in love or something?” 

He’d said it to lighten the mood, to maybe get a smile or laugh out of Keith because seeing him like this felt wrong, but he hadn’t expected Keith to look at him and say, “I think I am.”

And Lance had stared at him with wide, startled eyes. 

“And I think I have to get married,” Keith had added, just as sullen as he’d been during the entire festival. And Lance – caught up in the weight of the revelation – hadn’t known what to say. He hadn’t known why he felt so short of breath, why his chest felt lodged with an emotion he didn’t quite know the name of yet. He’d wanted to say many things, or at least it had felt like he wanted to, but it was hard. He hadn’t known why it felt so hard, was only puzzled with the suffocation of it. The desperation of it wanting to make itself known.

“Do I know them? The person you’re getting married to?” he had asked in place of all those emotions because they felt too overwhelming, too significant somehow, to attach only a mere sentence to. In the moment, it felt like he needed a lifetime to figure them out.

“Prince Sage from the Nilu Kingdom,” Keith had replied tersely, and Lance felt like something wasn’t adding up. Like something was wrong.

“Are you... in love with him, then?” 

And Keith had gone back to being quiet. Lance wondered if it was an obvious quiet, like who else could he possibly be in love with if he was going to marry this boy? But it also felt wrong, something was _wrong_. 

And he’d been right, when Keith finally spoke up to reply with a simple, almost defeated, “No. But I’m going to. For Adam and Shiro.”

It had felt final when he said it, like something had been sealed without a chance of being able to reopen it. It’d been Lance’s dread to have to be married for political gain or for any reason contrary to his own desires. He’d do anything for his people, but the threat of arranged marriage had hung over his head like a sword while growing up. 

“Adam and Shiro wouldn’t make you do that,” he had said, because he knew he was right and he needed to say something. Because it felt wrong not to. Because the desperation in him had felt eerily similar to a stoking fire that would not go out.

“They’re not, but isn’t this what I should do? As a prince? As the heir? I want to do this for them. I owe them that much.”

The Nilu Kingdom’s past with the Marmora Kingdom hadn’t been the most virtuous. After the Galran War horrifically struck their land way before Lance was born, the two kingdoms had been at odds with one another. At first, there had never been a Marmora nor a Nilu Kingdom, only the Galra Empire. Marmora’s legacy was rooted in their rebellion against their totalitarian regime. After attempting to conquer the lands on which magic lived, other kingdoms at the time – including the Lenula Kingdom – had been in support of the rebellion and helped bring a victorious end to the empire. The Galrans were then led by Prince Nilu Rethiar, who took the throne soon after his father died and renamed the kingdom in his name. With him at the helm, they became an isolated state, refusing to align with anyone but themselves – and that included the Marmorans.

The Treaty of Mylian resulted in harmonious coexistence with the kingdoms that stood in allegiance with the witches and those who lived under their territory during the war, however, tensions between Nilu and Marmora prospered even as generations passed – Nilu maintained their strict isolation for decades, their ideology had blamed Marmoran rebels for aiding in the destruction of the home they once knew. This caused unrest in the people of Marmora for as long as they’ve stood as a kingdom, constantly wondering when Nilu would attack in the name of revenge. But it was finally put to rest with the rise of King Adam and King Shiro of Marmora. 

The two Kings had been negotiating with Queen Leandra and King August for months, trying to come up with the perfect compromise that’ll finally put their citizens at ease. Nilu hadn’t shown any hostility after the death of King Nilu himself, and the following queen – Queen Leandra – had been more than willing to turn the page of history and finally make a change. They were finally opening up to alliances again, and Marmora could finally close the chapter that the war left behind. The only condition that Shiro and Adam couldn’t fulfil was a marriage between the two, to appeal to their citizens and make their ties official to the public. It was purely symbolic, the final push to show the clean slate between them. To finally give their people peace of mind.

They were willing to go on without the marriage if it couldn’t be helped, until Keith insisted. 

Thinking back to that memory doesn’t make him feel any better, and he bats his lashes quickly to ward off the tears he feels lingering in the corners of his eyes. Keith has had the weight of not only his own past, but the past of his kingdom resting on his shoulders. When really, all he’s ever wanted was to give back to the people who gave him so much.

Keith snores away above him, and Lance can’t help the tear that finds its way out as he looks at him and thinks, _you deserve to be happy, you’ve always deserved to be happy._

  
  


* *

  
  


The mermaids come out to greet them around noon with fish to share. Lance greets them with a basket of apricots, which the mermaids are unusually fond of. They don’t care for much of the food that humans eat, but apricots are among the few exceptions. 

Everyone spends time entertaining them as the festival bustles with their arrival.

People put out the goods they’ve brought along with them, myriads of them splayed out over the grass for everyone to indulge in. Lance takes his time talking to the mermaids, careful not to get dragged in by the coming tides. He’d always wondered what it would be like to swim alongside them, but it’d be disrespectful to enter without a consensus from the pod, so he stands ashore to speak with them instead. 

Royal families from other kingdoms arrive in the afternoon, bearing wines and fruits of all blooms. Among them is the Nilu Kingdom, decked out in their green garbs and pelican pins, a box of their signature elderberries in hand. The King and Queen, Leandra and August, are there along with Princess Cynthia. Lance notices that Prince Sage isn’t with them.

When the Kings of Marmora arrive, Lance feels his mood brighten if only just a little. King Adam’s oud always leaves the atmosphere buzzing with that familiar excitement of the annual festival. Ever since they discovered that mermaids have a penchant for the oud, they’ve been playing it every year courtesy of King Adam, well versed in the instrument as he is. It always has a way of lighting up Lance’s spirits, too. Getting lost in the music, in the arts, remains to be one of the things that feels like a balm over his scattered thoughts. 

Most of the day is spent with their families and the mermaids, and while Lance doesn’t mean to, he also ends up avoiding Keith. It isn’t too hard amid the festivities to lose sight of each other, though Lance thinks it’s the worst place to be when all he wants to be is alone. 

The mermaids are nice company, if anything. 

“The dolphins call to you,” the mermaid, Ami, says to him as she digs into an apricot with her thumb, slicing it around with the blunt of her nail. “They wait for you beneath these waters.” 

“Really? Are they still shy?” Lance, admittedly, has had his fair share of dolphin swimming in the past. Finicky, happy animals they were. Boy what would he give to swim with them right now.

“They are afraid of humans, always have been.”

“Then why do they call to me?”

“I do not know of dolphin intuition,” she says, quirking a brow at him. She slips a slice of the apricot into her mouth and swallows it. “But they enjoy your company. I imagine they can see you have no ill in your heart.” 

Lance hums, attempting to humor her. “That sounds like a compliment if I ever heard one.” 

“I’m only relaying what I have heard.” 

“And why is that?” Lance crosses his arms over his chest, lowering onto a squat next to her. “Is there something you want, Ami?” 

It wouldn’t be the first time, he’s built a friendly rapport with Ami throughout the years. She isn’t too fond of humanly belongings so she’d never ask for any of that, but whenever her and her pod have matters they need to discuss, whether it be about fishermen or sailors, Lance is usually their go-to. 

She arches closer to him, the sun shining in golden specks over her dark brown skin. “No. Not for myself at least, but for you.”

Lance tilts his head at her. “What about me?”

Ami turns her head to the side and Lance follows her gaze behind them, where Keith is currently in the middle of discussing something with Queen Leandra and King August. His brows pinch together, and he turns back to her. “What?” he asks, tone more serious.

“That woman,” she says, still looking at the group of them. “She reeks of something... that burns. It’s rancid and unpleasant. What business does she have with your mate?”

Lance stalls, grappling for something to say though he can’t find it quick enough when attacked so covertly. She does this _every_ time and it always leaves Lance red in the face and a fumbling mess. “You _know_ Keith isn’t my mate! And I already told you, we don’t call it that!” he snaps, or shouts. “And – and what does that even mean? How does she smell like she burns?” 

“It’s not a physical smell. It’s her aura,” Ami says simply, confident as ever. “Her heart... I feel that it’s tainted. It’s not like yours. Not everyone has the purest heart, I can see it in all you humans. You all carry different shames. But none of them feel this… callous. This is why I say this to you, Prince Lance. You must be careful.”

Lance is left speechless as she dips back into the shallows, leaving him with something uneasy prickling in his chest. That’s not something he needs to hear, especially not when Leandra is to become Keith’s future in-law. 

He groans and wipes a hand down his face. Ami doesn’t really have anything to go off of beside her intuition, so perhaps it isn’t something he should be _actively_ worried about. Maybe after this whole curse fiasco is over and he somehow manages to retain his memories of Keith, he can sit him down and tell him, _‘hey, a mermaid told me your in-law might not be the most moral person in the world and basically said her heart is rotting. So you know. Look out.’_

Yeah, that should go over well. 

When his last pearl fades of color, it becomes inevitable to have to see Keith again. It happens when they’ve all gathered around the bonfire, Keith’s warmth presses into his side almost as soon as his last pearl gives out. He wonders how he knows exactly when to come, but he’s too distracted by the solidness of Keith to think about it too much. The urge to lean into him is irrefutably palpable and almost exhausting to resist. 

He wraps his fingers around his ankles, where he crosses them over the sand. Keith doesn’t say anything, only sits next to him and watches the fire. It gets harder and harder not to lean against him. 

“Are you mad at me?” Lance asks through the fissure of silence, still watching the flames writhe around. 

“No,” answers Keith, simple and bare of anything that might be hidden in between. “I’m just worried about you.” More silence. And then, “What’s going on, Lance?” 

Lance can only shake his head. 

Keith sighs. “Is this why you’re avoiding me? Or is it something else that you’re gonna tell me about later?”

Lance grimaces, flattening his legs over the sand. “I’m not doing this here.”

“This isn’t a fight,” says Keith, adamantly. “We’re not fighting.”

“Keith.”

“It has something to do with me, doesn’t it? Look me in the eye and tell me it has nothing to do with me.” 

Lance licks his lips and looks up at him, but he doesn’t say anything. Keith has a mixture of confusion and hurt and concern drawn all over his face and it makes his stomach twist. There’s heat searing underneath his skin and it merges with the bonfire and has him feeling like he’s been lit aflame. 

Keith rakes a hand through his hair. “Just – I need you to talk to me, and I’ll help you. I want to help you.”

“You can’t,” Lance nearly croaks it, He clenches his jaw and fists the sand beneath him. “You can’t,” he repeats, quieter. “Please, don’t ask me anymore. I’m… I’m going to figure it out.” 

He knows that he could tell him, but wouldn’t that just make this worse? Wouldn’t it just make Keith feel _worse_ , when he realizes there really isn’t any other way?

The night unveils itself with chatter from all sides, the strum of the oud carrying in the backdrop, the sea hissing as it grasps at the shore, but the space between them remains so unsettlingly quiet that Lance feels numb to it all. Not a single cell in his body likes this. Doesn’t like keeping Keith at a distance, it feels so wrong when his whole life they’ve both served as impenetrable walls for each other. 

His eyes prickle at the thought of that wall crumbling down as though it never exited. Like it means nothing. And all it would take is one measly, meager sip. He thinks of that as something inherently unjust; for something so significant, so glaringly intricate in the many minutes and hours and seconds of his life to be taken away in less than a minute. 

Whoever has done this to him – how _dare_ they? How dare they try to reduce Keith into something small and microscopic and _forgotten?_

Later, when they’re back in their tent, he doesn’t let himself turn his back to Keith. A voice in the back of his head tells him that he has to cherish every piece of Keith he can get, no matter how badly he wants to fight against it. He can’t see him through the sheet of darkness that surrounds them, but he can feel Keith’s eyes on him just as he can feel the firm press of his hand in his. He ignores the worry in his stomach, how he can feel the burn of their limited time together all the way in his core. 

“You don’t have to pretend around me,” Keith whispers into the darkness, into the stillness. Even though it robs him of being able to look at Keith, Lance is thankful for it. At least he won’t have to see him looking so heartbroken. 

He remembers when they’d only been boys and Lance had said those same exact words to him, so honest and whole and innocent they’d been. 

“I know,” his voice trembles with it. “I’m not.” 

And then he leans in to bury his head into Keith’s chest, looping his arms around his waist to clutch at his back. Keith instantly wraps his other arm around him and sifts his fingers through his hair, cradling him close.

“Is it bad?” Keith asks, muffled from where his face is pressed into Lance’s hair. “Is it deadly?” he whispers this time, his hold growing tighter. 

Lance only hesitantly shakes his head, though he thinks, _it feels like it is._

“Whatever it is, I’m here,” Keith says helplessly, and Lance can imagine him struggling for a way to get his point across in a situation like this, where he has no idea what’s going on but he knows he wants to help. The way Keith usually is. “I’m here, Lance. I’m here.”

Lance smiles despite himself and bites back a sob. 

“I know,” he says, though his voice breaks and it leaves him in a shallow exhale. He can’t speak for fear that he’ll cry.

He doesn’t let himself think about tomorrow being their last day here, that tomorrow night they have to leave and Lance has to go back to the castle where the potion awaits like poison in his own home. He doesn’t think about any of it and presses himself closer if even possible, and just soaks in all of Keith. 

  
  


* *

  
  


On the last day of the festival, everyone sits across the sand to give their silent thanks to the ocean nymph. They face the ocean as they kneel and hold their hands to their chests. Lance keeps his eyes closed and feels the ocean spray over his face. He knows he should be making his promise right now, but he struggles to think of anything. For the past couple of years he’d promise to keep their town safe, to be a well-deserved prince. He thinks of the promise habitually, but for the most part he just sits through the ceremony with a heavy weight over his heart and waits for it to be over. He isn’t in the mood for any of this right now. 

They head to the nearby town afterwards, where a mini celebration is held for the end of the festival. This part of the festival is usually pleasant given that the royal family can support local vendors. Lance is no less generous with his money and gives it away happily, even when those selling would urge him not to. They’ve gotten used to it over the years. 

He’s already bought a scarf, two necklaces, a bracelet, and a couple hot buns that he gives to a group of children who’d been following him around not as discreetly as they might have thought. They look startled when he approaches them, and it lightens his heart to see them so cheerful and buoyant. 

“Thank you, Your Highness!” they all say, smiling excitedly up at him as they take their treats. 

When they continue to stand there, digging enthusiastically into their hot buns while looking at him as though wondering what’s next, he reaches up to stroke at his chin, pretending to think. “Say, how do you kids feel about some new toys, books, and quills?” 

Most of them gawk at him, staring at him in wonder while others share excited glances with one another, but no one vocalizes their obvious eagerness. One boy who’s got powder all over his cheeks from the hot bun says, meekly, “It would do no good to trouble you, Your Highness.” 

“Ah, well, you’re just in luck,” Lance says, turning to walk towards the stall ahead. “I was going to head there anyways, so it’s no trouble at all!” 

They scramble to follow after him, and Lance lets them pick out whatever they want. The woman on the other side of the stall sends him a knowing smile, and he smiles back. “I’m afraid you’ve got some thieves on your hands, Your Highness,” she tells him while handing one of the children a figurine of a knight. 

“Who am I to deny anyone their creativity?” he says, sliding over a handful of coins across the counter.

“What a gracious thought, Prince Lance,” someone else says, and Lance turns to spot a woman with blonde pigtails suddenly standing next to him. He blinks at her, not having noticed her appear at all. 

“Romelle,” he greets in surprise, pulling his lips up into a kind smile. “I didn’t know you were going to be here. Is Allura with you? And the rest of the coven?” 

“Ah, no, it’s just me. I’m like a delegate they’ve sent in their place, since most of the other witches like to celebrate the festival in the homeland,” she says, tying her hands behind her back as she watches the kids rumble about jovially. 

“I see. You know that’s not necessary, although it’s a pleasure to see you, I’d rather you celebrate comfortably.”

Romelle waves him off, shaking her head to insist otherwise. “Partaking in the festival with other beings of Earth is always a humbling experience,” she says, reaching out to help a boy grab a doll and handing it to him. “The ocean… is a good source of healing as well.” 

Lance nods in agreement, though he wonders why he hadn’t seen her at all up until this point. Although given everything that’s been on his mind, he isn’t surprised by his lack of attention to detail. Romelle is one of the witches he knows from the town of Mylian, and someone who’s become a good friend to him as well. 

“I actually wanted to ask something of you,” Romelle turns to him, a shy smile on her face. “Would you care to accompany me in prayer? I’ll be leaving shortly and I wanted to pay tribute to the spirits of the forest to ensure safe travels for all.” 

Lance appraises the request, even though he doesn’t really feel all that up to it. Morning prayer had been unbearable at best, but Romelle is a friend. He doesn’t get to see her very often as it is. And at least he won’t be alone with his thoughts. 

“Sure, I just… have to check on something very quickly before we leave, if you don’t mind.”

“No, not at all. I’ll wait here.”

He figures it’d be good to let Keith know where he’d be, so Lance continues down the street in search of him, though it becomes harder and harder to spot him through the throng. He starts asking if anyone has seen him, and when that doesn’t get him anywhere, he thinks maybe he should just hurry and find Romelle before he loses any more time. 

Just as he starts in the other direction, though, he catches sight of dark hair and purple robes in his peripheral. Frowning, he steps back and turns – and lo and behold, there Keith is, tucked in between two buildings. He can barely make him out through the crowd, but he knows that it’s him.

He tries to get closer, but stops abruptly when he spots a bird flying next to Keith. It gradually begins to change shape, morphing into a human, and Lance realizes he’s looking at Prince Sage. Curly dark hair with green streaks, the familiar green robes. It’s him.

Right away, he leans into Keith to say something to him. Keith instantly curls in closer, and they look like they’re whispering to one another, but Lance doesn’t stick around to find out more. He quickly heads back, fingers stinging where they curl around his bracelet. 

He stares at it. Two pearls have gone white. 

He’ll have to make it quick, then. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


The forest gets darker the further they tred inside, the wide array of trees and leaves high above make it hard for light to sneak its way between them. He hadn’t thought that they’d be venturing so deeply into the forest when he agreed. He assumed they’d stand in front of the forest or maybe a couple feet inside. He isn’t sure how long they’ve been walking for, but it’s been long enough for his feet to feel raw against the ground.

What’s more, Romelle hasn’t been as talkative as she usually is. It’s strange for her, since she always has something to talk or ask about. She’s quite energetic. But she hasn’t tried to strike up a single conversation with him, only silently walking forward. It feels as though she’s after something, which he supposes she is, but her features have settled into something steely and focused. Too serious, even for something like this. 

“So, did Bandor ever finish that telescope he was talking about the last time I visited? He was really excited about it. I’ve been waiting on hot rocks to hear from him, to be honest,” he says, in an attempt to make conversation. 

Romelle is quiet for a moment, almost a moment too long, before she responds, “He’s still working on it. You’ll have to visit sometime. Give him motivation.”

“I see,” Lance says. “I’ll have to get right on that, then.”

“He’s in no rush. So you don’t have to be, either,” she says, tucking her hands into her sleeves. 

And that… doesn’t sound right at all. Given the few times he’s gotten to know Bandor, ‘ _not in a rush,’_ is actually the most uncharacteristic way to describe the man. He’s always piling projects over projects, taking on too much at a time. Once, Lance had spotted him working on four different potions at the same time because he couldn’t wait nor contain his ideas. 

“That’s strange, he’s not one to be so patient. I hope he’s alright,” he says, as a little of a joke but also in question. 

Romelle doesn’t look at him as she talks. “He only grew tired after so long. A telescope is hard to build, after all.”

Lance hums, their walk growing silent once again. 

“Where… do you exactly prefer to pray?” he asks, when they still don’t seem to be stopping. 

“Not that far along,” Romelle answers, the bustle in her steps not having waned once. Lance finds it strangely intimidating. “There’s a cave nearby that I like to use. Prayers are more likely to be answered the deeper you go into the forest. It should be up ahead.”

Lance doesn’t think he’s heard of that saying before, but he’s not sure. He’s too preoccupied with the words that are shoving their way up his throat, trying to break through. He’s been wanting to ask her about the curse, if there’s another way to break it. He knows he’d regret it if he didn’t ask her when he had the chance.

He carefully works his head around the question he’s been meaning to ask.

“Romelle... what do you know about the Lovethorn faery?” he asks, and Romelle nearly comes to a stop. Nearly. 

“Why… are you asking about that?” 

He bites his lip and blows out deeply through his nose. “I know someone who got struck by one,” he says, still wanting to keep this as discreet as possible. “What’s the cure? Other than… you know.”

“I’m not too sure,” she says, still walking. “I’d have to check my spellbook.”

“You don’t know anything about it? Off the top of your head? Like, this is magic. Do the rules have to be so strict? Isn’t magic fluid? If a curse like this exists, there — there _has_ to be a way to counteract it with another spell,” he says, his frustration laying itself bare through his tone. “And love is so… arbitrary. There are so many different ways to love, is the curse really only exclusive to the romantic kind?” 

“That’s quite thought provoking,” she comments, and Lance notes how she switches from tucking her hands into her sleeves and holding them behind her back, how her expression remains carefully blank, never turning to face him even as they speak. He wrinkles his brows at her. The topic is a little more pressing than to warrant this kind of reaction. “But I don’t think any of that matters now.”

“What?”

“We’re here,” she says, and Lance realizes they’ve stopped walking. He looks around for a second, and he doesn’t see a cave anywhere. Trees still loom high and large all around them, and there really isn’t anything but trees, not for miles. “You won’t have to worry about breaking your curse anymore.”

Heat trickles down the back of his neck, crawling down his spine. He takes a step back. “I never said I was the one who was cursed.”

“I know.” 

He furrows his brows at her, his confusion clear as day over his face. She comes closer, snarling at him, her teeth bared from the ferocity of it. There’s a rope in her hand, and he has no idea how she got it but this feels beyond wrong. It’s like he’s looking at a completely different person. 

“You’re… not Romelle,” he says, swallowing thickly. 

“Oh, figured that out, did you?” She caresses the rope, almost idly touching it. “I didn’t think you’d figure it out at all, really.”

“Who are you?” he asks fiercely, and begins taking more steps back, knowing well that he shouldn’t be here any longer than he already has. He thinks he should make a run for it – he’s already running on borrowed time – but before he can even try to turn around, she’s whipping the rope at him and twining it around his wrist and _yanks_ so hard that it slams him back into a tree. Romelle, or rather the imposter, sneers right into his face, his arm strapped around the tree in a painful angle. He winces against it, his pearls digging into his skin from where it’s caught in the rope. 

“What are you doing?” he spits, trying to pull his wrist free but it’s tied tight to his wrist, already in a knot. That isn’t normal, rope doesn’t just tie itself together. It has to be enchanted.

He can’t react quick enough, at least not quick enough for an enchanted rope. When she whips the other end of the rope around him, it instantly ties itself around his frame and keeps him plastered to the tree. 

And then, her face begins to twitch. She turns her head this way and that, veins protruding out of the skin of her neck, her blonde hair now shifting into a longer brown, her face shape losing definition to morph into another. When he meets her eye, he looks back at none other than Queen Leandra. 

“You,” he mutters, a cold feeling spreading across him in waves. “Why are you doing this?” he spits, breathing heavily against the restraint.

“This isn’t what I wanted, but it’s what has to be done.” She straightens and looks down at him, her eyes rimmed red. He can see her fingers trembling from where they’re clenched by her sides. “It was never supposed to involve you, but that’s where we are now and it’s either you or my entire kingdom.”

In a flash, Lance remembers seeing Prince Sage earlier, how surreptitious he and Keith looked as they spoke to one another in their own space, secluded and secretive. His heart takes a painful leap, thinking about whether or not that had been a trap for Keith. And then he remembers Ami warning him about Leandra, and feels his head spin with all this information, with everything slowly coming together. 

“You did this to me,” he accuses, vehemently. 

“Well, that won’t matter if you disappear forever,” she says, looking down at Lance’s wrist. It clicks in the most horrible, gut wrenching way. 

“You brought me here on purpose.” He stares at the ground and shakes his head ruefully. “You want to kill me.” 

“You’re… a good man, Prince Lance. But you’re also a loose end, and I can’t have that.” 

Lance quickly looks down at his bracelet and sees the barest of blue left over the last pearl. He stares back up at her. He can’t believe this. He can’t believe any of this is happening.

“Why? All this magic, and for what? You’ve taken advantage of another being and for _what?_ What is all this for?”

“Do you really think in a world doused in magic, creatures and all, that we shouldn’t be given the same right? If I want to use magic to get what I want then I _will,_ ” she counters, and she’s so calm as she spouts this utter nonsense to him with all the confidence and credence in the world. He can’t believe it at all.

“No. Humans were never meant for that kind of thing; magic isn’t _ours_ to conquer. What you’re doing – it’s not worth what you’ll get the entire realm involved in. You say you’re doing this for your kingdom, but doing all this only endangers it!” 

It was the deal they’d made with the other beings who roam this Earth – coexisting together by the will of nature. Magic is not something that belongs to humans, they have no business with it or interfering with the creatures who do possess it. And if they try to upscale that balance, there would be consequences. 

“I’m _saving_ my kingdom. After years of negligence, I’m trying to fix the wrongs of my predecessors. Not that I have to tell you that. And after you, no one will have to know.”

Just as he’s about to submit to the idea that this could be it, something suddenly whizzes past them, right in front of Lance. It’s a bird, Lance thinks at first, before it materializes into legs and arms and a torso, then Prince Sage is there with a knife pointed at him. It happens too fast, way too fast, all he can see is the pointed metal coming down right at him, but instead of stabbing him, it slices at the rope around him. 

He realizes he’s not dead when it comes undone. 

“Sage!” Leandra shouts, reaching into her sleeve for another weapon, but Sage stands like a rock in front of Lance.

“No,” he says, menacingly. “It’s time that you ended this, mother. Enough is _Enough._ ” 

Lance brings his shaking legs to a stand, and Sage turns to him with heat in his eyes. “Go. Keith is here looking for you. You have to hurry.” 

Lance can only offer the barest of nods before he breaks off into a sprint. 

“You’re too late anyways!” Leandra yells behind him, and Lance’s heart beats like war drums in his ears as he runs. He doesn’t look at his last pearl to see if she’s right.

He steps over twigs and nearly trips on his own two feet as he hurdles through the forest. His lungs burn like salt pouring over a wound, he can feel it dripping into his chest, into his stomach, into his legs. He burns all over. 

“Lance!” he nearly jumps into a tree at the call, at Keith’s voice. He whips in the direction of it and _bolts._

“Keith! Keith, I’m here!” his tongue is thick in his mouth, the words leaving him in a heap. The earth feels wrong beneath him, his legs feeling lighter where they carry him. 

But then he sees Keith. Down the path, meters away from him so he’s not close enough to touch but he’s _there._ They run towards each other and it’s so frightening how he’s _right there_ but not where he needs him to be. He reaches a hand out and Keith does the same and he thinks maybe they’ll make it, maybe he’ll make it, but as soon as he thinks he can feel the heat of Keith’s touch, he’s being hauled off the ground by that phantom force. And away from Keith. 

His breath is stripped out of him in one fell swoop. 

“No,” he thinks he says, he might be screaming it, but he can’t feel anything beside his panic, beside his heart at his fingertips. But Keith is looking up at him as he drifts further and further away, looking distraught and pale and _shattered._ His hand stays raised where it is, still reaching for him, still locked in time.

Gravity turns Lance over on his back and he can’t see him anymore. Tears stream down the side of his face, falling back to the ground. Back to Keith. All he can see is the sky, dimmed and gloomy and only growing darker the further he drifts. Because that’s what this is. It’s not flying, it’s not floating, it’s _drifting._

Is he going to drift through the atmosphere? Until he can’t anymore? Until it kills him, just like Leandra wanted?

His chest already constricts from how far he’s gotten, wind slamming into him and leaving him gasping for breath. The residual light of the sun sears into his eyes and makes his tears fall faster, the wind making them fall harder. He closes his eyes against it all, dulls out the panic, the dread, and lets it be. 

He wonders if this is what his fate would have come to regardless of the Queen’s meddling. He’s known. It’s been in the back of his mind throughout these tumultuous days, he’s known for a while. That this curse left him with the choice of losing Keith or death. Right now, as his heart trembles and kicks and claws at him the higher he goes, he thinks they’re both one in the same.

Thunder sounds heavily around him, so booming and loud that it jolts Lance’s eyes wide open. The first thing he realizes is that the sky is lighter now, that he must be getting closer to the end. And then the thunder sounds again, reverberating so hard, so harshly, Lance feels it pass through his very bones. 

When he tries to look down, he realizes it isn’t thunder. 

A dragon so vast and grand is zooming towards him at lightning speed. His eyes are bogged up by his tears and the wind doesn’t help as it makes the dragon blurred beyond comprehension in his vision, but Lance feels it deep inside him, inside the part of him that wants to laugh because that’s _Keith._

He chokes on a laugh when he feels the solidness of him, when he drops onto his back and feels the ridges of his spine press against his whole body. It shifts into sobbing very quickly as he latches onto him and buries his face into his wild mane. Keith roars and he feels it echo within his ribcage, within his rolling stomach. 

He keeps his eyes squeezed shut and holds on like he’s never held onto anything ever before. Keith glides through the air and Lance can feel the warmth of his textured skin – of Keith himself – over the coolness of the wind, over the wild descent they take towards the ground. He doesn’t open his eyes once and only holds on as tightly as he can, letting the feeling of being tethered wash over him like the wind between his hair. 

* *

  
  


Keith lands in an obscure part of the forest. As soon as they make contact with the ground, his muscles instantly begin to shift beneath him, closing in on themselves and slowly shrinking back to size. Lance comes down along with the gradual descent, though he continues to stay buried in the stretch of his mane. It disappears underneath his head and turns into soft, supple skin. He feels the beginning of a pulse against his lips, knows that he’s now curled up into Keith’s neck. 

Strong arms come up around him and press him impossibly closer. His nose smushes against Keith’s neck, but he doesn’t care. The smell of him is so prominent here, so distinctly Keith that it makes Lance tremble harder. Keith himself also shakes beneath him, his breathing shallow and hard where he can feel it fanning over his ear. 

Keith’s hand smoothes down his back and slides up again to thread through his hair, where he holds him firmly, yet oh so tenderly. His thumb circles through his hair, into his scalp, and Lance lets out a ragged, broken sigh. 

“Lance,” Keith rasps over his temple, low and hushed and sacred. Lance feels wetness there, smudging into his skin. “Lance… let me look at you.” 

Lance fists Keith’s shirt, sniffling as he picks his head up to stare back into Keith’s red, glassy eyes. Keith’s hands come up to cup his cheeks, and Lance feels his lips begin to wobble at the sight of him so very real and whole and _here_. He can’t hold back the sob that rips its way out of him, his tears collecting over Keith’s cheek and sloping down into the grass. 

“God damn it, Lance,” Keith’s voice breaks over his name. Lance feels the gentle graze of his thumbs as they brush away his tears, and Lance shakingly reaches over to do the same to him. “I thought – I thought I lost you. I thought I wasn’t going to catch up to you.” It sounds like he can scarcely talk, his voice a crumbly, choppy mess. Keith sniffs and continues to thumb at his cheeks even as his tears dry, his eyes darting all over him like he always does only this time it’s slower, more fragile. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Keith asks the next second, eyes still moving between all the corners of his face. 

Lance’s confusion must show on his face, but it’s so gentle, so tender. Everything feels so breakable between them, in this small, breathless space between them. 

“Why didn’t I tell you what?” he asks softly, has to clear the phlegm out of his throat.

“About the curse, about everything.”

“You… Keith… you...” Lance mumbles, not knowing how to string the words together, to give them to Keith all at once like this. His heart takes a fearsome beat in his chest. 

“I know,” says Keith, all velvet and smooth, like he’s talking about something simple and not at all earth-shattering. When it very much feels like that. Lance swallows, doesn’t understand why Keith doesn’t look as panicked as Lance has felt the past couple of days. 

“You know?” 

Keith nods once, now smoothening his thumb over the edge of Lance’s brow. The touch is so feathery it nearly leaves Lance light-headed, almost distracts him enough to let himself fall completely into it. But he can’t. Not when Keith _knows,_ not when they have to have this talk right now. 

“How?”

“Sage told me,” Keith answers, lightly.

And Lance’s brain works a little faster, catches up to everything beyond this moment, beyond the woods and the grass and Keith staring up at him like he’s something precious and darling and revered. 

“I didn’t know how to tell you,” Lance croaks, his voice dropping desperately. He feels the spark of a fire ignite and curl somewhere deep inside him at how he’s right where he’d feared he’d be, right in front of Keith’s bottomless eyes – his best friend’s bottomless eyes – with his heart on his sleeve. “I… what do I even say? ‘Hey Keith, I’m cursed because I’m – I’m _in love_ with you and the only way to stop it is for you to love me back? Or else I have to take a stupid potion that’ll make me forget you ever existed?’” 

His throat starts closing up on him, his eyes growing misty again. He doesn’t look at Keith and sits up, though Keith follows him deftly; so deftly that they nearly knock their heads together. Lance leans back on instinct, and Keith’s arms shoot up to hold him steady. They stare at each other for a moment, a stare that reads clumsy but sobers into something too meaningful for Lance to untangle right now. 

“What choice do I even have?” Lance continues, turning his head away. “You have a life to live and this won’t work forever. It’s not practical. You… you don’t deserve that.” _You deserve to be happy._

“I don’t deserve what?” Keith asks, tilting his head down to catch Lance’s eye. 

“This.” Lance gestures between them, then at himself, currently in Keith’s lap. His face contorts in embarrassment. “It was never going to work. You live a whole kingdom away – you can’t just change your life because I got cursed. It wouldn’t have changed anything if I told you.”

“So you – Lance.” Keith blanches, eyes going wide in horror. “You – were you going to take the potion?” 

Something big and round and heavy gets clogged in his chest, balling up so densely that he swears he might collapse under the pressure of it. “I didn’t want to!” he says, no _urges._ “It was – it felt like the only choice I had! If it was going to relieve you–”

“ _Relieve me?_ ” Keith repeats, completely and utterly appalled.

“Not like _that,_ if you’ll let me finish–”

“No, Lance – there’s isn’t a _world_ where I’m happy with a life that you’re not a part of,” Keith says earnestly, reaching up to hold his face in his hands and making Lance look at him, making him listen. “Do you hear me?” 

“Keith,” Lance murmurs, like it’s the only thing he knows how to say. 

“Do you really think that? That you had no choice?” Keith shakes his head, but for some god forsaken reason, he – he’s _smiling._ “So you really don’t know?”

Lance doesn’t even keep himself from looking as gobsmacked as he feels because _what the living hell?_

“What are you talking about? And stop – looking at me like that, this is serious you jerk,” Lance hits his shoulder indignantly. If he weren’t cursed he would’ve already been up and stomping away by now. Okay, maybe not. But he’s very _confused_.

“No, Lance,” Keith huffs, then clasps onto Lance’s hands and holds them gently, looking down at them as though pondering his next words. Lance watches him with his heart in his throat. “You really can’t see it? When you look at me?” 

Lance doesn’t say anything, doesn’t understand where Keith is taking this. He just lets himself look at him. Though it’s an instantaneous response to want to tell him, _I’d know if there was something different about you. I’ve looked at you more times than you know._

“I… don’t know what you mean.”

Keith continues to smile at him, absently stroking his knuckles all the while. “You know, what’s that saying? That you can see magic in the eyes of those who love you.”

Lance, feeling his heart turn in maddening circles, blurts out as a last resort: “Humans can’t use magic.”

Keith nods at him. “Yes, I know,” he says, and when those eyes are pointed back at him, Lance thinks about the way Keith’s always looked at him, about how it makes him feel like no one shares this Earth but them, how even then, it makes him feel stranded in the island of his eyes. How Lance has felt like the center of that island each and every time Keith has so much as glanced at him, how Lance has had to tell himself to stop _hoping_ countless of times and – _oh._

Keith leans closer, the heat of him exploding like a star all around them and into the intricate fibers of his being. Lance feels hazy off of his nearness, starbound in the infinite nebula of his eyes. “But they say love is it’s own kind of magic,” Keith says, looking at him so sincerely, so shamelessly, so honestly. “And I love you, Lance McClain.” 

And then he kisses him. 

He _kisses_ him. 

Lance feels electrified, his blood pumping, his veins humming, as he kisses him back. He thinks, there isn’t enough breath in him for Keith to steal yet he does. He steals it over and over and over again and Lance lets him. The push and pull of his lips against Lance’s feels like magic – it _has_ to feel like magic. Every part of him comes alive, he’s torn apart and then linked back together again and it feels like the beginning of time, when stars had died just to give them the chance to breathe. To love. 

When they part, Keith litters his neck with kisses, never once letting go. They feel ceaseless, never ending, promising. He kisses up and down his throat, across his collarbone, up his jaw, back to his lips. Keith maps his hand across his back, pulls him in until they’re chest to chest and slips his hand underneath his shirt to press a palm to his stomach. Lance gasps at the cool touch – and something in his head goes _skin-to-skin-to-skin-to-skin_ like his body has gone alight with _Keith Keith Keith Keith_ – but he pulls Keith back in by his neck and kisses him with ardor, fervent in the way he loves his mouth to redness. 

He never wants this moment to be over, wants to hold Keith here forever, and has half a mind to whine when Keith pulls away, only to continue kissing that spot between Lance’s shoulder and neck. 

“All I could think about on the expedition was you,” he confesses against his skin, tattooing the words there with the press of his lips. “How badly I wanted to tell you about it, how I wanted you there with me, how all I wanted when I came back was to be with you.” 

Lance holds his head against his neck and arches into him, brushing through his hair to kiss over his temple. 

“I wrote to Adam and Shiro before I came back. To annul the engagement.” 

Lance stops, his body freezing as his mind tries to catch up with the rest of him. He lets out a disbelieving laugh, pulling Keith out of the crook of his neck to look at him. “You what?” 

“It’s over,” Keith says, reaching up to hold onto Lance’s wrists. “It’s been over for months. The papers were all signed before I even came back.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Lance breathes, and it sounds – profound. 

“I wanted to. But I wanted it all out of the way first. There’s a mandatory dinner where Sage and I have to sign these collateral agreements – but it just meant a lot to me to tell you after everything was done.” He kisses the inside of Lance’s wrist, strokes the side of his hand with his thumb. “I wanted to start fresh, with you. You deserve that.” 

Lance leans his forehead over his and closes his eyes, still reeling. “You’re going to have to give me time to adjust to all of this. I – I can’t believe any of it.” 

“Every word is true. I was working on the collateral agreement when I was with you earlier in the week, to get it over with. I wish I told you sooner, all of this could’ve been avoided.” 

Lance smiles widely at him, like he can’t believe him, as he reaches around to tie his arms around Keith’s neck. He loops a strand of his hair around his finger, and Keith watches him intently. “It’s not your fault you’re a romantic.” 

Keith blinks at him, then rolls his eyes. His lips twitch. “I’m not.”

 _“Love is it’s own kind of magic_ –”

Keith grabs his hips and squeezes, and Lance tries to lurch back because he knows what’s coming next, but Keith’s already digging his fingers into his sides and has Lance spilling into back-aching, stomach-twisting, rib-shaking laughter. He leans his head against Keith’s shoulder from the force of it, and it feels so raw and real and right as it shakes out of him – he knows how miserable he’s been lately _considering,_ but he didn’t think he missed laughing until it was gushing out of him by the press of Keith’s hands. 

It feels – good. So good.

“I thought you’d appreciate that kind of thing,” Keith grumbles eventually, and Lance catches how red his ears are when he turns his head to the side. With a fond smile, Lance sits up and turns Keith’s face over to him with a tug on his chin, then leans in to drop a peck onto his lips. 

_Oh man,_ he can do that now.

“I do,” he whispers into his mouth, then kisses him again, longer this time. Keith sighs against him, his fingers flexing around his waist. “I think I might have the best boyfriend in the world.” He bonks their noses together and lets out a little laugh. “I never thought I’d ever get to say that. I… do get to say that, right?”

“ _Yes,_ ” Keith affirms immediately. “Gods, yes.” 

And then they’re kissing again. Slow, languid, perfect. Lance wants nothing more than to push Keith down and do this for the rest of forever, kiss him into the grass until they forget everything that exists outside of their little bubble, though when they pull apart and Keith’s eyes are fixed solely on him, he remembers; _magic._

“Wait, do you think… the curse is lifted now?” he wonders, brushing his thumb over the mole on Keith’s neck. 

“It should be. You made that _very_ clear,” Keith remarks, and Lance chuckles and leans in to press a kiss onto his mole. “You want to try?” 

Lance blows out a nervous breath, though he knows he shouldn’t have anything to be nervous about. “Yeah.” 

He gets up and takes a couple steps away from Keith, who’s watching him without a hint of stress on his face; like he’s absolutely certain that nothing will happen, and Lance is too busy thinking about how that means he’s absolutely certain of his love for him to realize that he’s just standing there, feet planted firmly and solidly over the grass. His heart seizes and Lance lets out a little laugh before jumping right back into Keith’s arms, and Keith catches him and begins twirling him around and the wind tastes just like Keith’s laugh rumbling against his chest. 

This, he decides, feels more like flying than drifting ever could.

  
  


* *

  
  


Keith flies Lance back to the castle afterwards, bypassing the festival entirely. Of course when the rest of them come home the following evening, quite literally ready to wage an all out war against the Nilu Kingdom, the mess they’ve been hiding unravels. He isn’t at all comfortable with telling them about him and Keith through the curse, but he’s left with no choice when the head witch makes an appearance the next morning. 

Allura is a force to be reckoned with when she enters the rather chaotic meeting regarding the situation. The aura surrounding most magical beings is usually so heavily charged that even humans can feel the energy radiating off of them, and the entire room must surely get a whiff of the power coming through her in waves. 

“The Queen of Nilu has tampered with magic and coerced a witch from my coven to aid in her conspiracies by _kidnapping_ her brother,” Allura speaks over the resounding chatter, silencing the entire room beneath her voice. She’s flanked by two other witches, and they’re staring everyone down with such fire in their eyes that Lance can physically feel the tension bogging up the room. “As such, this matter involves the land of Mylian. We received word of Leandra’s whereabouts soon after she fled the woods, and have her in custody. We seek detainment of Queen Leandra under our jurisdiction, as well as assistance in anticipation for a war.” 

“There will be no war,” Lance states, immediately. “I understand that the situation has crossed all boundaries, but war should be the last thing we’re considering.” 

“No one wants a war, but Leandra brought this on her kingdom, she defied order and attempted to _kill_ you. And while I agree she should face detainment, the Kingdom of Nilu isn’t just going to stand by and let their Queen be taken,” Aleja, Lance’s mother, rebukes. 

“But needlessly killing innocent people isn’t going to get us anywhere. We know from history that’s _not_ the answer.”

“It’s like the Queen said, who’s to say Nilu won’t strike first?” Veronica adds on, her expression pinched somberly. “They’ve been caught, and we know they won’t surrender easily. They’ve stood alone for a long time and maybe their lack of allies is helpful to us, but their _Queen_ was at the helm of all this. And the last time they waged war, they almost won.”

“That was during the reign of the Galra Empire, which doesn’t exist anymore,” Luis interjects.

“That doesn’t mean their army is any less powerful.”

“Lance says Prince Sage helped him, though,” Rachel chimes in, looking at them wearly. “That… has to count for something.”

They keep bouncing around the topic from person to person, not reaching a cohesive decision until another voice sounds behind the witches and announces: “The Kingdom of Nilu is prepared to dethrone the Queen.” 

Lance turns towards the sound, and Prince Sage himself comes around to stand beside them. “We don’t want to go to war over my mother’s crime, and I stand before you today to claim that we are taking full responsibility for her actions.” 

At that, the room is overcome with silence again. Lance picks at his finger with his thumb, staring between his siblings, his mother and father, Prince Sage, and the group of witches. Him coming here might make all the difference, and despite Sage having helped him, he didn’t know whether or not this would be up for negotiation with him. 

“Do you know what you’re agreeing to?” Marco asks, standing to approach him. Sage is firm in his position, unyielding where he stands before him. 

“I’ve known since before the attack,” he falters, glancing over at Lance. “I wanted to warn Prince Lance of what was to come, but my mother had me imprisoned. It was with the aid of Romelle, the witch who had been forced to help my mother, that I could escape. She needs to be dethroned, I know that now. I refuse to put my people through a war just to have her remain in sovereignty.”

“If the state of Nilu agrees to our conditions and the conditions imposed by the Witches of Mylian, we can avoid any and all casualties,” Lance’s father, Ramon, tacks on, staring at Sage with a steely sort of determination. 

“There will be sanctions of the highest degree. This is not to be taken lightly,” Aleja says, and Lance is relieved to hear that they’re straying further and further away from the idea of war. He’d been prepared to fight against it for the duration of the meeting, if he had to. 

“We’ll start on the treatise of our conditions with Allura. You’ll hear word of them after they’ve been reviewed,” Aleja says, addressing Sage sharply, and the meeting draws to a close. 

As they begin filing out, Allura gives him a look as she passes by, and he nods to show his solidarity. They had a chance to talk prior to the meeting, where he’d asked about Romelle and was assured of her safety, as well as Bandor’s. As it turns out, Leandra had forced her to create the potion that enabled her to wear Romelle’s features as a mask. Among everything else she made her do.

He still wonders what all that effort had been for. 

When he catches up to Prince Sage, he plans to find out why. 

“Prince Sage,” he calls, walking beside him. “Can I have a word?” 

Sage nods subtly, and they go out into the hall to speak. He notices how stiff he looks; his arms crossed in front of him, his shoulders drooped low, closed off and distant. 

Lance gives him a small smile as he says, “I understand how compromising this position must be for you, but you don’t have to be so uncomfortable. It’s just me.”

Sage sags with the weight of his sigh. “It’s shameful. This entire situation. I don’t know how to tell you how sorry I am, Prince Lance.”

“This wasn’t your fault,” he says, solemnly. “If it wasn’t for you… things might have turned out very differently. I don’t wish to punish your people for the mistake of one person. Even if it was their Queen.”

Sage’s mouth twists apprehensively. “I appreciate the extent of your kindness, but that may not be true. I’m afraid that I had just as much a part in this as my mother did,” he admits, resentfully. 

“What… do you mean?” 

“I assume Keith didn’t have the time to tell you,” he says, then wipes a hand down the side of his face. “At first… it seemed that my mother’s intentions had been to make sure Nilu’s power would be stronger than that of the other kingdoms. She ordered the witch to make sure no other kingdom could grow more powerful than ours,” he says, wincing as the words leave him, like they physically taste bad in his mouth. “When I found out about it, I tried to stop them. Romelle and I struggled, and I don’t really know what happened, but other ingredients fell into the pot and next thing I knew, a Lovethorn faery was escaping out of it. Romelle tracked the faery’s traces and… it led to you.”

Lance is quiet as he soaks it all in, though it isn’t really what he expected. _At all._ “It was a mistake?” he blurts, and Sage withers in on himself. 

“I’m so sorry. The curse wasn’t meant for you at all, but when I intervened…” He sighs, turning his head away.

“I’m just relieved it wasn’t personal,” Lance says for his benefit, but for himself too. At least now he knows he doesn’t have a moving target attached to his back. 

He never could wrap his head around why anyone would have him cursed. He’s never been much of a threat to the other kingdoms, never gave them a reason to see him as one. He couldn’t think of anything he’s done that could’ve provoked anyone to actually _curse_ him. Especially when that kind of thing would be a black scar on a monarch’s entire kingdom. 

For it to be a mistake… makes more sense, in retrospect. 

“Oh, Gods no.” Sage shakes his head quickly. “My mother, she… based the future success of our kingdom off of my engagement. She assumed if Marmora would align with us, then other kingdoms might trust us again. And after it fell through, she couldn’t let it go. Ironic how it only doomed us in the end.” 

Lance’s brows lift at that; he knows he shouldn’t be too surprised, but the link between the curse and the marriage is one he didn’t think held quite the gravity. He’d understand the power an alliance like that may hold over a kingdom, especially given Nilu’s history, but scheming to take away the power of _all_ the other kingdoms is... where it gets a tad extreme. 

“In that case, maybe it was better that it turned out this way,” he says, although he bites his tongue when it leaves him. Sage pales even more, looking utterly horrified, so Lance quickly continues, “I think it was better that I was the one who ended up cursed rather than all the other kingdoms. You know. In retrospect. That… would have been worse for both our sakes.”

Sage lets out a shaky breath, but still looks as though he had just seen a ghost. “Even so, this was all disastrous. And I’m glad you’ve come out of this unharmed.”

Lance grins genuinely at him and reaches over to press a hand onto his shoulder. “Thank you, really. I know relations between our two kingdoms are rough right now but… in the future if you need an ally, you’ll find one in me.”

Sage, for the first time since he entered the castle, looks a little less stressed and a little more relieved. “That means a lot coming from you. I appreciate it, truly.”

Now that Sage is going to have to take the throne way sooner than he had thought, and under these circumstances no less, he must be feeling more alone than ever. There isn’t really room for him to place blame on Sage, not when he’d been trying to put a stop to this all along. It isn’t fair for him to go down for what his mother did, so ensuring him of this is the least he can do.

  
  


* *

  
  


When Sage leaves, Lance has to withstand debating with his parents about the various sanctions they want to place on Nilu. Miraculously, he manages to get through it without tearing his own hair apart, and after that’s over, he heads to his studio. Considering the past couple of taxing days he’s had, he _needs_ this reprieve. 

He unveils his latest creation. A bust of a mermaid looking up at the world above. It started off as a sketch of his, one that he’d drawn during one of his excursions to the sea a couple months ago. He’d found Ami’s pod there on their southern migration, and met new additions to the pod. One of which happened to be the mermaid who was patient enough to let him draw them. Kendi. 

He’d only created the clay mold all those months ago and never had the time to continue the process. He’d rehydrate it whenever he had to, but his fingers ached almost everyday with the need to get it done. Now, he’s going to give himself the time. 

He starts by inserting metal shims into the sculpture, dividing its front and back halves. He mixes the plaster and lathers it over the back half, and revels at every stroke and swing his brush takes. He moves diligently, makes sure to get into all the crevices he can spot. Some of the plaster splatteres all over his robes as he works, though he feels a tang of respite with every splash that taints them, too. 

He steadies the mold onto a cart and rolls it over to a window, where the streams of sunlight _hopefully_ dry it fast enough so he can continue today. 

And just as he thinks of heading upstairs, Hunk and Pidge poke their heads through the door. 

“I called it!” Pidge proclaims, before both her and Hunk are making a mad dash towards him. He braces himself for impact and lets out a strangled wheeze as they tackle him to the ground. 

He laughs and loops his arms around them both. “What did you call?” 

“Many things, now that you mention it,” Pidge says, rolling to the side and digging her elbows into the ground. Lance rolls his eyes and doesn’t bother sitting back up. Hunk mimics Pidge and stares down at him. 

No one says anything and Lance _knows_ what they’re waiting for, but he’s not just going to give it to them that easily. 

“So,” Hunk says, leaning closer. He sounds almost conversational. “When’s the wedding?” 

And there that goes. 

Lance groans into his hands and wrinkles his nose when his wrists are torn apart to show Hunk leaning precariously close to his face. “You guys,” Lance laughs, then bats their hands away when they start pinching his sides. “Okay, okay!” he sits up, huffing indignantly. He looks between them, then stares down at his fingers. He picks at the bit of plaster that clings to the side of his thumb. 

“It was… everything I’ve always wanted,” he admits, softly, like he’s saying it to himself. “I still can’t believe it happened.” 

His lips still tingle as he recalls the kiss they’d shared, heat curls around his neck, his cheeks, his chest. He sighs without really meaning to. It just leaves him, perhaps in longing. How can he miss him already? They’d only been apart for a day since Keith had to return to his kingdom after Lance had to deal with his parents. Although… he hadn’t gotten enough of him, had tasted him for what can only seem like a fleeting moment right now. 

“Stars, you look about ready to fly all over again,” Hunk says, nudging him excitedly. Lance groans at his choice of words. “I can’t believe it took a curse to get you two together, but I’m happy for you.”

Pidge gives his arm a little punch. “I told you it’d turn out okay.” 

“Thanks, you guys,” he says, and even though there’s more work to be done, he feels more content than he’s felt at all during these past two weeks. Sitting here with his friends, talking about the boy he likes. It almost feels ordinary. 

“So, would you like to do the honors?” Pidge reaches into her satchel to pull out a bottle with black liquid stored inside. The potion, or rather _poison,_ as he’s taken to calling it. Lance sours at the sight of it. “I was thinking we’d pour it down a river or toss it into a fire. Whatever works, really.” 

“You know what.” He stands up and grabs the bottle out of her hands. “Don’t mind if I do.” 

For all the torture that single bottle had put him in, why not?

And so, that’s how they find themselves alongside the nearest river bank to dispose of it once and for all. And oh does it feel _good_. 

  
  
  
  
  


By the time he removes the original sculpture from the mold, cleans out as much clay as he can from inside, waits for the mold to set once he’s rejoined the two halves together, and pours buckets of plaster into it, the moon has already replaced the sun high up in the sky. He figures he should let it dry overnight and manages to pull himself away to retire to his chambers. 

He takes off his robes and runs himself a bath, the hot water doing wonders to soothe the strain of all the stress he’s been carrying. He rests his eyes while he’s in the tub, and only gets up after all the steam has dispersed. 

The fabric of his fresh pair of silks feel sublime over his skin, and sinking into his bed after such an exhausting day nearly knocks him out right away. He wants nothing more than to rest easy for once, but just as he’s about to get under his sheets, he hears a loud thump reverberate from outside. The bed even wobbles under the force of it; the frames over his wall, the candles over his dresser, the articles over his vanity, they all rattle in place. 

Quickly, he gets up and wrenches the balcony doors open to look out into the gardens. There, sitting in a massive heap and looking right at him – because that’s how freaking _humongous_ he is – is none other than Keith. In his dragon form. Lance is chuckling before he even knows it as he reaches over to squeeze his large snout in his hands. “What are you _doing_ here?”

Keith leans slightly into his hold, and all he gets is a rather steamy huff out of him before he gives him a little nudge on his chest. Lance quirks a brow, but lets him go and watches as he slowly begins to shrink back down to his regular size. The boy he’s grown up with appears then, his clothes gone tattered and ripped as he stands there, smiling impishly up at him. Lance feels like his cheeks might crack from how hard he’s smiling. 

“Stop looking at me like that and get up here!” he whispers, and then Keith is running over to one of the side entrances. 

It takes Keith a couple minutes to reach his room, but when he finally comes inside, Lance is feeling almost overwhelmed at the sight of him. They meet each other in the middle, where Lance chuckles something soft and warm while he reaches over to flick at Keith’s stray fringe. “I can’t believe you,” he says, skimming his hand down his cheek to touch the rip on his shoulder, thumbing at the bit of skin that shows through. 

“I wanted to see you,” Keith says, so blatant and honest and it’s tragically unfair how he can just _say_ things like that, like he doesn’t know the effect it has on him at all. 

“You saw a whole lot of me throughout the week. You know, when you were basically glued to my skin.”

“And?” Keith grasps onto his hands and holds them in his, then begins to tenderly roll his thumbs over the dips of his palm. He brings them back over to roam over his knuckles, and Lance can only watch him as his chest swells with affection. 

“Are you sculpting again?” Keith wonders, still keeping up that wonderful roll of his thumbs. 

“How’d you know?” he breathes, his voice a wrecked and slight and worn thing. 

“Your hands always feel rougher afterwards,” says Keith, redirecting his eyes back at him, and Lance isn’t sure if he’ll ever get used to it; how those very same eyes look like his past and present and future all at once. How he feels like he’s both drowning and running a mile a minute within their depths. How Keith, looking at him right now – under the dim lighting, clothes barely holding shape, hair gone askew, hands warm and firm and sure around his own – is still standing there even after all these years. 

_I was meant to love you,_ he thinks. _I can’t imagine a world where I don’t love you._

Lance unwinds their hands and moves up to cup his jaw, holds his gaze with his own, then leans in to kiss him. And Keith pulls him in by his waist and holds him so close and his heart feels so _free_ . 

They tumble towards the bed and Lance lets out a sigh as they fall onto it. He lets his hands wander up beneath Keith’s shirt, skimming over his back, trailing over the sides of his ribcage, digging into his hair. His senses are all of Keith, his world centering on his smell, his touch, his breath. His skin hums with it, skips with it, shivers with it.

“Is this alright? Are you comfortable?” Keith whispers against his lips before going back in to peck him gingerly, with all the care in the world. His dark eyes move over him as though he’s some cosmic sight to behold, holds him in his eyes as tenderly as the swipe of his fingers over his thighs, his stomach, his cheeks. It makes Lance want to delve into the deepest parts of them, into the magic of them.

“Am I _comfortable?_ ” he speaks like he can’t quite believe him, then reaches up to push Keith’s hair back with his fingers. “Keith… I’ve wanted you for so long. I’m...” he laughs shakily, feels slightly embarrassed about it but only a smidge because this is _Keith._ “I’m the most comfortable when I’m with you.” 

Keith’s smile is soft and endeared as he leans down to press a kiss between his brows. “Me too. Always,” he whispers, kissing his way down the arch of his nose to peck the tip of it. 

And then, Keith looks at him. He doesn’t speak, he doesn’t really give anything away, and Lance wonders – _does he lose himself in my eyes as I do in his?_

“Being a prince… was easier because I knew you,” Keith confesses, fingers twiddling with the curls of Lance’s hair around his ear. “Because I had you by my side. I was okay with keeping it that way, if that was going to be the only way I could have you. I never thought we’d get here,” he says, then takes Lance’s hand and lays a kiss over his fingers, his knuckles, the place where his hand meets his wrist. He holds it there as he continues, his lips skimming over him like a love letter written into his skin. “And I want to do it right, I want – to be good to you.” 

Lance’s throat constricts around the feelings that follow him there, the love he holds for this man, for his best friend, it all feels like it’s exploding inside of him. He reaches up and pulls Keith down so that his face is pressed into his neck, wrapping his arms around his shoulders like it might keep every bad thing that’s ever happened away. Like this is their own small world. 

He wants to speak, wants to tell him how boundless his love is, how it’s been overflowing for years and years and years, how all Keith has to be is _Keith,_ but it’s so grand – _too_ grand to get his mouth around. 

Keith begins peppering kisses over his shoulder, gliding around his neck and giving the same attention to his other shoulder, until he shifts to hover over him again, still close enough to feel his breath over his lips, nose to nose. “What?” he asks, like he knows Lance has begun to drift. 

Lance looks at him, still feeling so speechless, so overwrought with his feelings. He’s usually so good with words, yet he doesn’t know how to equate such emotion in words. Simple, temporary words. 

“Tell me,” Keith continues, in that low rasp of his. He’s watching him attentively, earnestly, like he does.

Lance bites at his lip and holds it there, like he’s preparing for it, and around the thickness of his throat, he says, “I’ve been racking up the nerve to tell you about my feelings since the beginning of the festival. But I could never get it out because it’s – it’s…” _so much. It’s always been so much._ Lance sighs tremulously, and shakes his head as he continues, “What I’m trying to say is… having you here, it’s enough for me. It’s always been enough for me. _You’re_ enough for me, Keith.” 

And then they’re kissing again, a hot and passionate slide of their lips – like all the feelings that have been building up in him are erupting right here, right now, where their lips meet. He wants Keith to understand, to feel his love for him, to know through this kiss right here that this is all _him_. 

“Lance,” Keith’s voice grates in the space between them, as though it’s taking all of his will-power to stop kissing him. He ducks down again and pecks the corner of his lips. “I want to give you something.” 

“What?” Lance, for a second, is too dazed to actually understand what Keith is saying to him. When Keith moves off of him, he feels his brain kick into gear. 

Lance sits up, watching curiously as he reaches for the small pouch hanging off of his belt.

“A... gift?” Lance asks, and Keith slowly opens the pouch to reach inside. 

“Something like that,” Keith says, closing his hand around the so-called gift. He extends his hand and when he uncurls his fingers, his eyes are only looking at Lance. Watching for his reaction. 

When Lance glances down, his breath catches in his throat. His heart speeds up, blinking at the shimmering, mesmerizing jewel as though trying to clear his vision of a mirage. A ring. A dark ring with intricate, golden swirls decorating the exterior. There’s an inscription on the inside, but Lance can’t find it within himself to read it. His fingers begin to shake. 

“Keith,” he says, shallowly, eyes moving between the ring and Keith so quickly it looks like he’s about to jump out of his own skin. “Is that – are you – _Keith_ –”

Keith’s smile can only be described as hopelessly and tirelessly enderared and okay – Lance _can not_ be dealing with that look and _this_ all at once! 

“I’m not proposing,” says Keith, light and airy and so _fondly_ it makes Lance want to face plant into his pillow. He considers it, until Keith says, as though absently, “Not yet, at least.”

And Lance, despite himself, feels an ocean of heat slam into his face. He feels like he’s sweating through his clothes.

“I mean – some time – in the future? I, um,” he adds weakly, closing his hand around the ring and shifting on his knees. “This… isn’t how I thought this would go.” 

Lance grapples with his wits and chuckles softly, sitting up to wind his arms around Keith’s neck. He kisses him sweetly and pulls back to say, “Obviously, some time in the future.”

“Yeah?” Keith rests his unoccupied hand over his low back, tilting his head to brush their lips together ever so lightly. 

Lance hums and leans in for an actual kiss, then pouts when Keith doesn’t let it connect for longer than a second. “You’re insatiable,” Keith says, his lips quirking. “I was in the middle of something.” 

Lance pretends to roll his eyes at him, then reaches down to pull Keith’s hand up by his wrist. “Hey, I finally get to kiss you after _years_ of dreaming about it, I think you can cut me some slack,” he murmurs, unfurling Keith’s fingers until the ring is apparent again. He still feels his chest seize at the sight of it. “But I’m sorry, continue. If you’re not proposing… then what is it?” 

“It’s from my expedition,” he says at last, lifting the ring up while still looking at him. “It’s called an Eternal Flame. I told you that dragons guard the afterlife before, and this ring… dragons give it to their partners so they can find each other when they’re there. This makes it easier to find them,” he says, steady and unwavering. “And I – wanted to give mine to you. Every dragon gets one, and when I saw it... I thought of you.” 

“Keith.” Lance brings his hands up to cover his lips as he shakes his head, eyes growing misty. “I – I don’t know what to say. This–” he laughs wetly “–this exceeds any and _all_ proposals. But are you – are you sure? I… this sounds _huge._ ” 

“I wanted to give it to you the first night I returned,” he says, not making this any easier on Lance. He remembers, now that he thinks back. Jokingly asking Keith if he’d gotten him a gift and Keith hesitating, looking like he was going to pull something out. He wouldn’t believe it if the ring wasn’t sitting so perfectly, so promisingly between Keith’s fingers. “I told you I wanted to wait, and I did, but when I saw you… I almost couldn’t help myself,” he says, reaching up to scratch at his nape. Lance thinks he feels his heart soar somewhere far, far above. “So, yes, I’m sure. I don’t think I’ve ever been more sure.” 

Lance doesn’t know what to do. He just throws himself into Keith’s arms and hugs him close, tears slipping past his eyes and dropping onto his shirt. For Keith to ask this of him, for him to bring Lance into _this_ part of himself, for him to do it with so much heart and love and assurity– it means the world and more to Lance.

“Is that a yes?” Keith laughs into his hair, holding him just as tight.

Lance sniffs and pulls back to give a fervid nod because he can’t for the life of him manage the words right now. He sticks out his hand and Keith slips the ring onto his finger. He catches the inscription as he slips it on – _My Heart, My Earth, My Forevermore._ He takes a moment to stare at it, turning his hand this way and that, watching in an appreciative daze as it shimmers against the light of the room.

“Do you wear one too?” he asks, looking away to gauge Keith’s answer, though Keith is watching him keenly, openly, with the most tender smile on his face. He looks serene, like someone watching the sun set or the moon rise or the ocean ripple. It makes heat crawl up the back of his neck, across the width of his shoulders. 

“Yes, sorry, you just look – good. The ring looks perfect on you,” he says, the words coming out of him like a melody would, like the most elated of laughs would. He reaches back into his pouch and pulls out an identical ring. Lance bites back a smile and takes it, gesturing for Keith to give him his hand, then slips the ring onto his finger, too.

He fits their hands together, pulse to pulse, metal to metal, and hums appreciatively. “Now _that_ is a sight for sore eyes,” says Lance, tipping his head against Keith’s and stroking the side of his neck, where he can feel his pulse jumping to kiss the blunt of his thumb. 

They smile into each other’s lips and Lance murmurs an, “I love you,” before kissing him and dissolving back into their sheets, never once parting. Keith says it back, and then says it again, and again, and again, over the dips and valleys of his body, and then again when Lance is trembling in his arms. And then afterwards, too.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


In the middle of the night when they’re snuggled underneath the covers with sleep tugging at their eyes, hands lightly roaming, Lance tilts his head up to lay his chin against Keith’s bare chest. He looks at him and smiles lazily, fingers tapping a rhythm over his collarbone. 

“What are you thinking about?” Keith asks into the quiet, like the crackle of a bonfire in the night.

“You. Everything that’s happened _,_ ” he says, his voice a raw, contemplative thing. “I don’t want to think of anything but you right now.” 

Keith’s nails trail up and down his back, the goosebumps he’d acquired throughout the night now surrendering to his touch, and it’s so calming that he can feel the lull of sleep dragging him closer and closer to that sweet edge. 

“Except?” 

Lance loops his finger around Keith’s collarbone and back. “Except, something about the whole… curse has been bothering me.”

Keith shifts as though to sit up at that, but Lance presses his hand against his chest to keep him down. “No, no, no,” he whines, begrudgingly. “Don’t move, forget I said anything, I want to ignore all of that right now.”

“We should talk about it,” Keith insists, and Lance groans as he flops over onto the mattress. Keith turns on his side and props his head up with his hand, waiting for him to continue.

Lance stares at where the blanket drapes lowly around Keith’s waist, way _too_ lowly if you ask him, and Keith arches an amused brow at him. He lets out a ragged sigh that sounds suspiciously like a petulant, “Fine,” and pulls his lips to the side. 

“It just… doesn’t make sense,” Lance says, eventually. 

“What doesn’t?”

“Sage said... the only reason I was cursed is because of some ingredients altering the actual ritual’s purpose, as you know,” he starts, gesturing with a hand. “But that… doesn’t make sense. The ritual can’t change unless a witch changes their intention, and Romelle couldn’t have decided to summon a faery to put some kind of _love_ curse on me, just for the heck of it. She wouldn’t do that at all, anyway.”

“Right.” Keith nods along, following. “Which is why altering the ritual would alter the direction of the curse.”

“I don’t think so,” he shakes his head, lifting to sit against the headboard. “The original purpose of the ritual was to make it so that all other kingdoms couldn’t grow in their power. What Sage did, it changed the ritual itself, not the direction. Yeah, it turned into a love curse, but it affected _me._ ”

Keith’s brow furrows as he frowns, looking at him like he’s turning the information over in his head. “So what you’re saying is… you think the whole time, it was going to target you either way.”

“Maybe. I don’t know. That wouldn’t make sense either.”

“Maybe it’s you,” Keith says.

Lance looks askance at him. “What’s me?”

“Maybe you’re the great key to power for your kingdom,” he says, pushing himself up to sit next to him. 

Lance doesn’t hold back his laugh at the idea, shoving at Keith as though to berate him. “Very funny, Keith.”

“What? It’s a plausible possibility,” he says, shoving him back.

“I’m not even next in line for the throne.”

“So?” he says, like it’s a preposterous reason to try and give. Lance gives him a dubious glance, and Keith huffs. 

“I just have a hard time believing that out of all the other kingdoms, and my siblings, _I’m_ somehow the one who’ll make Lenula powerful? How does that make sense? Veronica is the commander-in-chief, not me. And...” he sighs, looking down at his hands. “Power can mean a lot of bad things, too.”

He’s already plenty powerful, he knows that, he’s been struggling with balancing it out for as long as he’s been walking this Earth, but _more_ power? What does that even mean? What would that look like for someone like him, someone who’s been born into power? Leandra’s need for power cost her her whole kingdom, and it nearly threw them into another war. Power has been the prime motivation for past colonizers and dictators, for most of the terrible things that have affected this world. 

It’s a scary thing to think about.

Keith shakes his head at him, like he can’t believe Lance isn’t getting it. But what’s there not to get, exactly? 

“I don’t know what kind of power Leandra was aiming for, but I…” Keith laughs, a small, rumbly sound, and turns to look at him. “There’s this… _life_ in everything you do. I’ve seen it in your art, in the way you give to your people, how you fight for them in court. Power can mean a lot of things, but you’d never use it for something you know isn’t right. You’ve always known that.”

Lance, gnawing on his lips and feeling his heart beat up a storm in his chest, says, “What else can it mean, then?”

Keith shrugs. “You. What you stand for. Your heart.”

And Lance can only stare, always stripped down to utter wordlessenss when it comes to Keith, apparently. Keith remains ever so solid in his words as he looks back at him without a single waver in his eyes. Lance lets out a strangled sound, then leans in to lay his head against Keith’s shoulder. He digs his nose into the muscle, and murmurs against him, “What is it with you and making me speechless all the time? I – you don’t have to be so charming, you know! I’ll still love you either way!”

“I’m not being charming.”

“Says the charmer.”

“ _Lance_.”

“Well, you know, that’s just not fair,” Lance says, sitting back up to point a finger at him. “I’m your heart, aren’t I? And you’re mine?” 

Keith raises both brows like he hadn’t seen that coming, and Lance does a little victory dance in his head for rendering _him_ speechless this time around. “Of course,” Keith says, and it sounds like it’s been punched out of him. 

Lance takes off his ring and shows him the inscription.

_My Heart, My Earth, My Forevermore._

“Then if what you’re saying is true, we’re _both_ responsible for… whatever great thing that may or may not happen in the future – _if_ we’re right! The end!”

Keith rolls his eyes and taps him on the nose. “Take responsibility for your own great thing,” he says, flashing him a sideways smile.

Lance gapes at him, looking partly affronted but not doing a very good job because his smile keeps trying to peek through. “You’re supposed to say, ‘that’s right, it’s you and me against the world, my love,’ or something equally as poetic as that.”

“I’m not poetic,” Keith says, to which Lance looks deeply offended.

“I’m sorry, did you not hear yourself like a minute ago?”

And then, without Lance seeing it coming, Keith attacks him back down into the bed and begins peppering wet kisses up and down his neck until Lance is laughing way too hard to try and stop him. 

“You make me a poet,” Keith whispers into his ear, and Lance _fawns._

“Oh dear,” he gasps and lays a hand over his chest, theatrics on full display. “There you go again. I’m not sure I can handle much more of this.”

Keith laughs against his jaw and Lance chuckles into his hair and presses a kiss over his forehead. They stay like that, waiting for the air to leave their lungs, for the lightness to settle in their chests. 

“You know I’m always going to be here, no matter what happens,” Keith promises against his skin, after they’ve relaxed against each other again. Forehead to forehead, sharing the same breath. Keith’s fingers brush over his cheek, skim across the shell of his ear, curl into his hair. They fit together so perfectly, so precisely. In ways Lance never thought he could ever have. “I’ve got you, always.”

“I know,” Lance doesn’t miss a beat, reaching over to hold his face in his hands, lets his fingers wander over his cheeks and his eyes and his brow and the collection of moles that dot his face. This, he’s very much, without a sliver of doubt, certain about. “Me too. Always.”

The future may be uncertain, it may hold a weight that bares down heavily against the seams of his thoughts, it may hold responsibility anew – and maybe it’s the residual glow and high that he feels right now – but he can’t wait to see what lies ahead. He thinks, as he curls further into Keith’s embrace, at least he knows it’ll be warm and loving.

**Author's Note:**

> okaaaaaay so here we are. i don't know how i feel about posting this tbh i keep going back and forth over how i feel about this whole story and how i executed it, but i truly hope you enjoyed reading it. i'm so nervous as i post this gkvjshvfkvjhs
> 
> there is potential for a sequel that i've been thinking about, but i'm not sure if i'd like to do that or make this a series sort of thing where i'd include some snippets of keith and lance navigating their relationship while going about their royal duties, things like that. some snippets into the afterlife....perhaps lance giving the dragons a visit! this au definitely grew on me and i can't let it go just yet! i also had some plans for keith and lance that i couldn't get into on here because it didn't quite fit into the story.
> 
> and i apologize if you read any typos, my wifi went out a couple days ago and it did this weird thing where it wrote over my previous edits with the ones i made when the wifi was cut off so .-. i hope i caught most of them but if you saw any then that's why. 
> 
> i'd also like to note that [opera house by cigarettes after sex](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giEOcBLcnfE) and [exist for love by aurora](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YDkrJaiCrw) both encompassed such a general mood for this story that i couldn't go without mentioning them, and that includes i'll keep you safe by sleeping at last! 
> 
> i have a [tumblr](https://moonheartened.tumblr.com/) if you'd like to know that, and a [twitter](https://twitter.com/keithslashes) although i haven't been active on there in a while!
> 
> thank you for reading <3 do drop a comment and let me know what you thought!
> 
> [EDIT] - the amazing [Ladybb](https://www.instagram.com/ladybb.art/) has created some fanart for this fic!! you can find it [here](https://www.instagram.com/p/CHZ143Agiy2/?igshid=go6b9r51v0b3) and [here](https://bre-artwork.tumblr.com/post/634394046531502080/your-heart-is-a-masterpiece-and-ill-keep-it) !!
> 
> much love!! <3


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